Wm- 


^ 


>S^  I 


r 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

SANTA  BARBARA 

COLLEGE  OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 


PRESENTED  BY 


MR.AND  MRS.R.W.VAUGHAN 


W^^ 


^W^Cv^^'i 

Hk 

B^B 

^P'" 

^' 

HHKmIH 

JSk 

w^^BmW^ 

>^^flPB  ^ 

SljaB 

^mfM 

^ 

^t^^M 

iH 

1 

,_/~^> 


MEMORIES   AND    PORTRAITS 


[^Atit^or's  Editio)}'\ 


MEMORIES  AND  PORTRAITS 


ROBERT  LOUIS    STEVENSON 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1895 

[Aii  rights  reserTed\ 


PR 


Ulvm^RSTTY  OF  CAl.lFQJiyn .\ 
SANTA  BAKJARA  COIXEGE  LliiiiAKY 


TO 

MY    MOTHER 

IN  THE 
NAME  OF  PAST  JOY  AND  PRESENT  SORROW 

H   Dedicate 

THESE  MEMORIES  AND  PORTRAITS 


S.  S.  •  Lndgate  Hill ' 

within  sight  of  Cape  Race 


NOTE 

This  volume  of  papers,  unconnected  as  they 
are,  it  will  be  better  to  read  through  from 
the  beginning,  rather  than  dip  into  at 
random.  A  certain  thread  of  meaning 
binds  them.  Memories  of  childhood  and 
youth,  portraits  of  those  who  have  gone 
before  us  in  the  battle, — taken  together, 
they  build  up  a  face  that  "  I  have  loved 
long  since  and  lost  awhile,"  the  face  of  what 
was  once  myself.  This  has  come  by  acci- 
dent ;  I  had  no  design  at  first  to  be 
autobiographical ;  I  was  but  led  away  by 
the  charm  of  beloved  memories  and  by 
regret  for  the  irrevocable  dead  ;  and  when 
my  own  young  face  (which  is  a  face  of  the 
dead  also)  began  to  appear  in  the  well  as 
by  a  kind  of  magic,  I  was  the  first  to  be 
surprised  at  the  occurrence. 


viii  Note 

My  grandfather  the  pious  child,  my  father 
the  idle  eager  sentimental  youth,  I  have 
thus  unconsciously  exposed.  Of  their  de- 
scendant, the  person  of  to-day,  I  wish  to 
keep  the  secret :  not  because  I  love  him 
better,  but  because,  with  him,  I  am  still  in 
a  business  partnership,  and  cannot  divide 
interests. 

Of  the  papers  which  make  up  the  volume, 
some  have  appeared  already  in  The  Cornhill, 
Longman^Sy  Scribbler,  The  English  Illustrated, 
The  Magazine  of  Art,  The  Contemporary 
Review ;  three  are  here  in  print  for  the 
first  time  ;  and  two  others  have  enjoyed  only 
what  may  be  regarded  as  a  private  circula- 
tion. 

R.  L.  S. 


CONTENTS 


I.  The  Foreignf:r  at  Home     . 
II.  Some  College  Memories 

III.  Old  Mortality    , 

IV.  A  College  Magazine  . 
V.  An  Old  Scotch  Gardener  . 

VI.   Pastoral       .... 
VII.  The  Manse  .... 
VIII.   Memoirs  of  an  Isli.t  . 
IX.  Thomas  Stevenson 
X.  Talk  and  Talkers  :  First  Tatkr 
XL  Talk  and  Talkers  :  Second  Paper 
XII.  The  Character  of  Dogs     . 


24 

38 

57 

77 

90 

106 

120 

132 

144 

169 

191 


X  Contents 

PAGE 

Xni.   "  A    Penny   Plain  and  Twopence 

Coloured"       .  .          .          .213 

XIV.   A  Gossip  on  a  Novel  of  Dumas's     228 

XV.  A  Gossip  on  Romance  .         .     247 

XVI,  A  Humble  Remonstrance    .         ,     275 


THE  FOREIGNER  AT  HOME 

*'  This  is  no  my  ain  house ; 

I  ken  by  the  biggin'  o't." 

npWO  recent  books,^  one  by  Mr.  Grant 
White  on  England,  one  on  France  by 
the  diabolically  clever  Mr.  Hillebrand,  may 
well  have  set  people  thinking  on  the  divi- 
sions of  races  and  nations.  Such  thoughts 
should  arise  with  particular  congruity  and 
force  to  inhabitants  of  that  United  King- 
dom, peopled  from  so  many  different  stocks, 
babbling  so  many  different  dialects,  and 
offering  in  its  extent  such  singular  contrasts, 
from  the  busiest  over-population  to  the  un- 
kindliest  desert,  from  the  Black  Country  to 


1 


I8«I. 
B 


2  Memories  and  Portraits 

the  Moor  of  Rannoch.  It  is  not  only  when 
we  cross  the  seas  that  we  go  abroad  ;  there 
are  foreign  parts  of  England  ;  and  the  race 
that  has  conquered  so  wide  an  empire  has 
not  yet  managed  to  assimilate  the  islands 
whence  she  sprang.  Ireland,  Wales,  and  the 
Scottish  mountains  still  cling,  in  part,  to 
their  old  Gaelic  speech.  It  was  but  the 
other  day  that  English  triumphed  in  Corn- 
wall, and  they  still  show  in  Mousehole,  on 
St.  Michael's  Bay,  the  house  of  the  last 
Cornish -speaking  woman.  English  itself, 
which  will  now  frank  the  traveller  through 
the  most  of  North  America,  through  the 
greater  South  Sea  Islands,  in  India,  along 
much  of  the  coast  of  Africa,  and  in  the 
ports  of  China  and  Japan,  is  still  to  be 
heard,  in  its  home  country,  in  half  a  hun- 
dred varying  stages  of  transition.  You  may 
go  all  over  the  States,  and — setting  aside  the 
actual  intrusion  and  influence  of  foreigners, 
negro,  French,  or  Chinese — you  shall  scarce 
meet  with  so  marked  a  difference  of  accent 
as  in  the  forty  miles  between  Edinburgh  and 


The  Foreigner  at  Home  3 

Glasgow,  or  of  dialect  as  in  the  hundred 
miles  between  Edinburgh  and  Aberdeen. 
Book  English  has  gone  round  the  world, 
but  at  home  we  still  preserve  the  racy 
idioms  of  our  fathers,  and  every  county,  in 
some  parts  every  dale,  has  its  own  quality 
of  speech,  vocal  or  verbal.  In  like  manner, 
local  custom  and  prejudice,  even  local  re- 
ligion and  local  law,  linger  on  into  the  latter 
end  of  the  nineteenth  century — iniperia  in 
imperio,  foreign  things  at  home. 

In  spite  of  these  promptings  to  reflection, 
ignorance  of  his  neighbours  is  the  character 
of  the  typical  John  Bull.  His  is  a  domi- 
neering nature,  steady  in  fight,  imperious  to 
command,  but  neither  curious  nor  quick 
about  the  life  of  others.  In  French  colonies, 
and  still  more  in  the  Dutch,  I  have  read  that 
there  is  an  immediate  and  lively  contact 
between  the  dominant  and  the  dominated 
race,  that  a  certain  sympathy  is  begotten,  or 
at  the  least  a  transfusion  of  prejudices, 
making  life  easier  for  both.  But  the  Eng- 
lishman sits  apart,  bursting  with  pride  and 


4  Memories  and  Portraits 

ignorance.  He  figures  among  his  vassals 
in  the  hour  of  peace  with  the  same  disdain- 
ful air  that  led  him  on  to  victory.  A 
passing  enthusiasm  for  some  foreign  art  or 
fashion  may  deceive  the  world,  it  cannot 
impose  upon  his  intimates.  He  may  be 
amused  by  a  foreigner  as  by  a  monkey,  but 
he  will  never  condescend  to  study  him  with 
any  patience.  Miss  Bird,  an  authoress  with 
whom  I  profess  myself  in  love,  declares  all 
the  viands  of  Japan  to  be  uneatable — a 
staggering  pretension.  So,  when  the  Prince 
of  Wales's  marriage  was  celebrated  at 
Mentone  by  a  dinner  to  the  Mentonese,  it 
was  proposed  to  give  them  solid  English 
fare — roast  beef  and  plum  pudding,  and  no 
tomfoolery.  Here  we  have  either  pole  of 
the  Britannic  folly.  We  will  not  eat  the 
food  of  any  foreigner  ;  nor,  when  we  have 
the  chance,  will  we  suffer  him  to  eat  of  it 
himself.  The  same  spirit  inspired  Miss 
Bird's  American  missionaries,  who  had  come 
thousands  of  miles  to  change  the  faith  of 
Japan,  and  openly  professed    their  ignorance 


The  Foreigner  at  Home  5 

of    the    religions   they   were  trying  to  sup- 
plant. 

I  quote  an  American  in  this  connection 
without  scruple.  Uncle  Sam  is  better  than 
John  Bull,  but  he  is  tarred  with  the  English 
stick.  For  Mr.  Grant  White  the  States  are 
the  New  England  States  and  nothing  more. 
He  wonders  at  the  amount  of  drinking  in 
London ;  let  him  try  San  Francisco.  He 
wittily  reproves  English  ignorance  as  to  the 
status  of  women  in  America ;  but  has  he 
not  himself  forgotten  Wyoming  ?  The 
name  Yankee,  of  which  he  is  so  tenacious,  is 
used  over  the  most  of  the  great  Union  as  a 
term  of  reproach.  The  Yankee  States,  of 
which  he  is  so  staunch  a  subject,  are  but  a 
drop  in  the  bucket.  And  we  find  in  his 
book  a  vast  virgin  ignorance  of  the  life  and 
prospects  of  America ;  every  view  partial, 
parochial,  not  raised  to  the  horizon  ;  the 
moral  feeling  proper,  at  the  largest,  to 
a  clique  of  States  ;  and  the  whole  scope 
and  atmosphere  not  American,  but  merely 
Yankee.      I   will  go  far  beyond  him   in   re- 


6  Memories  mid  Portraits 

probating  the  assumption  and  the  incivility 
of  my  countryfolk  to  their  cousins  from 
beyond  the  sea ;  I  grill  in  my  blood  over 
the  silly  rudeness  of  our  newspaper  articles  ; 
and  I  do  not  know  where  to  look  when  I 
find  myself  in  company  with  an  American 
and  see  my  countrymen  unbending  to  him 
as  to  a  performing  dog.  But  in  the  case  of 
Mr.  Grant  White  example  were  better  than 
precept.  Wyoming  is,  after  all,  more  readily 
accessible  to  Mr.  White  than  Boston  to  the 
English,  and  the  New  England  self-suffici- 
ency no  better  justified  than  the  Britannic. 

It  is  so,  perhaps,  in  all  countries  ;  perhaps 
in  all,  men  are  most  ignorant  of  the  foreigners 
at  home.  John  Bull  is  ignorant  of  the 
States  ;  he  is  probably  ignorant  of  India ; 
but  considering  his  opportunities,  he  is  far 
more  ignorant  of  countries  nearer  his  own 
door.  There  is  one  country,  for  instance — 
its  frontier  not  so  far  from  London,  its 
people  closely  akin,  its  language  the  same 
in  all  essentials  with  the  English- — of  which 
I    will    go    bail    he    knows    nothing.       His 


The  Foreigner  at  Home  7 

ignorance  of  the  sister  kingdom  cannot  be 
described  ;  it  can  only  be  illustrated  by- 
anecdote.  I  once  traveled  with  a  man  of 
plausible  manners  and  good  intelligence, — a 
University  man,  as  the  phrase  goes, — a  man, 
besides,  who  had  taken  his  degree  in  life  and 
knew  a  thing  or  two  about  the  age  we  live 
in.  We  were  deep  in  talk,  whirling  between 
Peterborough  and  London  ;  among  other 
things,  he  began  to  describe  some  piece  of 
legal  injustice  he  had  recently  encountered, 
and  I  observed  in  my  innocence  that  things 
were  not  so  in  Scotland.  "  I  beg  your 
pardon,"  said  he,  "  this  is  a  matter  of  law." 
He  had  never  heard  of  the  Scots  law  ;  nor 
did  he  choose  to  be  informed.  The  law 
was  the  same  for  the  whole  country,  he 
told  me  roundly  ;  every  child  knew  that. 
At  last,  to  settle  matters,  I  explained  to 
him  that  I  was  a  member  of  a  Scottish 
legal  body,  and  had  stood  the  brunt  of  an 
examination  in  the  very  law  in  question. 
Thereupon  he  looked  me  for  a  moment  full  in 
the  face  and  dropped  the  conversation.     This 


S  Memories  and  Porh'cii/s 

is  a  monstrous  instance,  if  you  like,  but  it 
does  not  stand  alone  in  the  experienceof  Scots. 
England  and  Scotland  differ,  indeed,  in 
law,  in  history,  in  religion,  in  education, 
and  in  the  very  look  of  nature  and  men's 
faces,  not  always  widely,  but  always  trench- 
antly. Many  particulars  that  struck  Mr. 
Grant  White,  a  Yankee,  struck  me,  a  Scot, 
no  less  forcibly  ;  he  and  I  felt  ourselves 
foreigners  on  many  common  provocations. 
A  Scotchman  may  tramp  the  better  part  of 
Europe  and  the  United  States,  and  never 
again  receive  so  vivid  an  impression  of 
foreign  travel  and  strange  lands  and  man- 
ners as  on  his  first  excursion  into  England. 
The  change  from  a  hilly  to  a  level  country 
strikes  him  with  delighted  wonder.  Along 
the  flat  horizon  there  arise  the  frequent 
venerable  towers  of  churches.  He  sees  at 
the  end  of  airy  vistas  the  revolution  of  the 
windmill  sails.  He  may  go  where  he 
pleases  in  the  future  ;  he  may  see  Alps,  and 
Pyramids,  and  lions  ;  but  it  will  be  hard  to 
beat    the  pleasure  of  that   moment.      There 


The  Foreigner  at  Home  g 

are,  indeed,  few  merrier  spectacles  than  that 
of  many  windmills  bickering  together  in  a 
fresh  breeze  over  a  woody  country ;  their 
halting  alacrity  of  movement,  their  pleasant 
business,  making  bread  all  day  with  uncouth 
gesticulations,  their  air,  gigantically  human, 
as  of  a  creature  half  alive,  put  a  spirit  ot 
romance  into  the  tamest  landscape.  When  the 
Scotch  child  sees  them  first  he  falls  immedi- 
ately in  love ;  and  from  that  time  forward 
windmills  keep  turning  in  his  dreams.  And 
so,  in  their  degree,  with  every  feature  of  the 
life  and  landscape.  The  warm,  habitable 
age  of  towns  and  hamlets,  the  green,  settled, 
ancient  look  of  the  country;  the  lush  hedge- 
rows, stiles,  and  privy  pathways  in  the  fields  ; 
the  sluggish,  brimming  rivers ;  chalk  and 
smock-frocks  ;  chimes  of  bells  and  the  rapid, 
pertly -sounding  English  speech  —  they  are 
all  new  to  the  curiosity  ;  they  are  all  set 
to  English  airs  in  the  child's  story  that 
he  tells  himself  at  night.  The  sharp 
edge  of  novelty  wears  off;  the  feeling  is 
scotched,   but   I    doubt    whether    it    is  ever 


I  o  Memories  and  Portraits 

killed.  Rather  it  keeps  returning,  ever  the 
more  rarely  and  strangely,  and  even  in 
scenes  to  which  you  have  been  long  accus- 
tomed suddenly  awakes  and  gives  a  relish  to 
enjoyment  or  heightens  the  sense  of  isolation. 
One  thing  especially  continues  unfamiliar 
to  the  Scotchman's  eye — the  domestic  archi- 
tecture, the  look  of  streets  and  buildings  ; 
the  quaint,  venerable  age  of  many,  and  the 
thin  walls  and  warm  colouring  of  all.  We 
have,  in  Scotland,  far  fewer  ancient  buildings, 
above  all  in  country  places  ;  and  those  that 
we  have  are  all  of  hewn  or  harled  masonry. 
Wood  has  been  sparingly  used  in  their  con- 
struction ;  the  window-frames  are  sunken  in 
the  wall,  not  flat  to  the  front,  as  in  England; 
the  roofs  are  steeper-pitched  ;  even  a  hill 
farm  will  have  a  massy,  square,  cold  and 
permanent  appearance.  English  houses,  in 
comparison,  have  the  look  of  cardboard  toys, 
such  as  a  puff  might  shatter.  And  to  this 
the  Scotchman  never  becomes  used.  His 
eye  can  never  rest  consciously  on  one  of 
these  brick  houses — rickles  of  brick,  as  he 


The  Foreio-jter  at  Home  1 1 

might  call  them — or  on  one  of  these  flat- 
chested  streets,  but  he  is  instantly  reminded 
where  he  is,  and  instantly  travels  back  in 
fancy  to  his  home.  "  This  is  no  my  ain 
house  ;  I  ken  by  the  biggin'  o't."  And  yet 
perhaps  it  is  his  own,  bought  with  his  own 
money,  the  key  of  it  long  polished  in  his 
pocket ;  but  it  has  not  yet,  and  never  \\\\\ 
be,  thoroughly  adopted  by  his  imagination  ; 
nor  does  he  cease  to  remember  that,  in  the 
whole  length  and  breadth  of  his  native 
country,  there  was  no  building  even  distantly 
resembling  it. 

But  it  is  not  alone  in  scenery  and  archi- 
tecture that  we  count  England  foreign.  The 
constitution  of  society,  the  very  pillars  of  the 
empire,  surprise  and  even  pain  us.  The  dull, 
neglected  peasant,  sunk  in  matter,  insolent, 
gross  and  servile,  makes  a  startl.'ng  contrast 
with  our  own  long  -  legged,  loi'g  -  headed, 
thoughtful,  Bible  -  quoting  ploughman.  A 
week  or  two  in  such  a  place  as  Suffolk 
leaves  the  Scotchman  gasping.  It  seems 
inciedible  that  within  the  boundaries  of  his 


1 2  Memories  and  Portraits 

own  island  a  class  should  have  been  thus 
forgotten.  Even  the  educated  and  intelli- 
gent, who  hold  our  own  opinions  and  speak 
in  our  own  words,  yet  seem  to  hold  them 
with  a  difference  or  from  another  reason,  and 
to  speak  on  all  things  with  less  interest  and 
conviction.  The  first  shock  of  English 
society  is  like  a  cold  plunge.  It  is  possible 
that  the  Scot  comes  looking  for  too  much, 
and  to  be  sure  his  first  experiment  will 
be  in  the  wrong  direction.  Yet  surely  his 
complaint  is  grounded  ;  surely  the  speech  of 
Englishmen  is  too  often  lacking  in  generous 
ardour,  the  better  part  of  the  man  too  often 
withheld  from  the  social  commerce,  and  the 
contact  of  mind  with  mind  evaded  as  with 
terror.  A  Scotch  peasant  will  talk  more 
liberally  out  of  his  own  experience.  He 
will  not  put  you  by  with  conversational 
counters  and  small  jests ;  he  will  give  you 
the  best  of  himself,  like  one  interested  in 
life  and  man's  chief  end.  A  Scotchman 
is  vain,  interested  in  himself  and  others, 
eager  for  sympathy,  setting  forth  his  thoughts 


The  Foreigner  at  Hoine  1 3 

and  expeiience  in  the  best  light.  The  ego- 
ism of  the  Englishman  is  self-contained 
He  does  not  seek  to  prosel}'tise.  He  takes 
no  interest  in  Scotland  or  the  Scotch,  and, 
what  is  the  unkindest  cut  of  all,  he  does  not 
care  to  justify  his  indifference.  Give  him 
the  wages  of  going  on  and  being  an  English- 
man, that  is  all  he  asks  ;  and  in  the  mean- 
time, while  you  continue  to  associate,  he 
would  rather  not  be  reminded  of  your  baser 
origin.  Compared  with  the  grand,  tree-like 
self-sufficiency  of  his  demeanour,  the  vanity 
and  curiosity  of  the  Scot  seem  uneasy, 
vulgar  and  immodest.  That  you  should 
continually  try  to  establish  human  and 
serious  relations,  that  you  should  actually 
feel  an  interest  in  John  Bull,  and  desire 
and  invite  a  return  of  interest  from  him, 
may  argue  something. more  awake  and  lively 
in  your  mind,  but  it  still  puts  you  in  the 
attitude  of  a  suitor  and  a  poor  relation. 
Thus  even  the  lowest  class  of  the  educated 
English  towers  over  a  Scotchman  by  the 
head  and  shoulders. 


X  4  Meinories  and  Portraits 

Different  indeed  is  the  atmosplicre  in 
which  Scotch  and  English  }'outh  begin  to 
look  about  them,  come  to  themselves  in  life, 
and  gather  up  those  first  apprehensions 
which  are  the  material  of  future  thought 
and,  to  a  great  extent,  the  rule  of  future 
conduct.  I  have  been  to  school  in  both 
countries,  and  I  found,  in  the  boys  of  the 
North,  something  at  once  rougher  and  more 
tender,  at  once  more  reserve  and  more  ex- 
pansion, a  greater  habitual  distance  chequered 
by  glimpses  of  a  nearer  intimacy,  and  on 
the  whole  wider  extremes  of  temperament 
and  sensibility.  The  boy  of  the  South 
seems  more  wholesome,  but  less  thoughtful ; 
he  gives  himself  to  games  as  to  a  business, 
striving  to  excel,  but  is  not  readily  transported 
by  imagination  ;  the  type  remains  with  me 
as  cleaner  in  mind  and  body,  more  active, 
fonder  of  eating,  endowed  with  a  lesser  and 
a  less  romantic  sense  of  life  and  of  the  future, 
and  more  immersed  in  present  circumstances. 
And  certainly,  for  one  thing,  English  boys 
are  younger  for  their  age.      Sabbath  observ- 


The  Foreigner  at  Home  i  5 

ance  makes  a  scries  of  grim,  and  perhaps 
serviceable,  pauses  in  the  tenor  of  Scotch 
boyhood — days  of  great  stiUness  and  solitude 
for  the  rebellious  mind,  when  in  the  dearth 
of  books  and  play,  and  in  the  intervals  of 
studying  the  Shorter  Catechism,  the  intellect 
and  senses  prey  upon  and  test  each  other. 
The  typical  English  Sunday,  with  the  huge 
midday  dinner  and  the  plethoric  afternoon, 
leads  perhaps  to  different  results.  About 
the  very  cradle  of  the  Scot  there  goes  a  hum 
of  metaphysical  divinity ;  and  the  whole  of 
two  divergent  systems  is  summed  up,  not 
merely  speciously,  in  the  two  first  questions 
of  the  rival  catechisms,  the  English  tritely 
inquiring,  "What  is  your  name?"  the  Scot- 
tish striking  at  the  very  roots  of  life  with, 
"  What  is  the  chief  end  of  man  ? "  and 
answering  nobly,  if  obscurely,  "  To  glorify 
God  and  to  enjoy  Him  for  ever."  I  do  not 
wish  to  make  an  idol  of  the  Shorter  Cate- 
chism ;  but  the  fact  of  such  a  question  being 
asked  opens  to  us  Scotch  a  great  field  of 
speculation  ;    and    the   fact   that   it   is   asked 


1 6  Memories  and  Porh^iits 

of  all  of  us,  from  the  peer  to  the  plough- 
boy,  binds  us  more  nearly  together.  No 
Englishman  of  Byron's  age,  character  and 
history,  would  have  had  patience  for  long 
theological  discussions  on  the  way  to  fight 
for  Greece ;  but  the  daft  Gordon  blood 
and  the  Aberdonian  schooldays  kept  their 
influence  to  the  end.  We  have  spoken  of 
the  material  conditions  ;  nor  need  much 
more  be  said  of  these :  of  the  land  lying 
everywhere  more  exposed,  of  the  wind  always 
louder  and  bleaker,  of  the  blaclc,  roaring 
winters,  of  the  gloom  of  high-lying,  old  stone 
cities,  imminent  on  the  windy  seaboard ;  com- 
pared with  the  level  streets,  the  warm  colour- 
ing of  the  brick,  the  domestic  quaintness 
of  the  architecture,  among  which  English 
children  begin  to  grow  up  and  come  to 
themselves  in  life.  As  the  stage  of  the  Uni- 
versity approaches,  the  contrast  becomes  more 
express.  The  English  lad  goes  to  Oxford 
or  Cambridge  ;  there,  in  an  ideal  world  of 
gardens,  to  lead  a  semi-scenic  life,  costumed, 
disciplined  and   drilled  by  proctors.      Nor   is 


llie  Foreigner  at  Home  17 

this  to  be  reg-ardcd  merely  as  a  stage  of 
education  ;  it  is  a  piece  of  privilege  besides, 
and  a  step  that  separates  him  further  from 
the  bulk  of  his  compatriots.  At  an  earlier 
age  the  Scottish  lad  begins  his  greatly  dif- 
ferent experience  of  crowded  class-rooms,  of 
a  gaunt  quadrangle,  of  a  bell  hourly  booming 
over  the  traffic  of  the  city  to  recall  him  from 
the  public-house  where  he  has  been  lunching, 
or  the  streets  where  he  has  been  wandering 
fancy-free.  His  college  life  has  little  of  re- 
straint, and  nothing  of  necessary  gentility. 
He  will  find  no  quiet  clique  of  the  exclusive, 
studious  and  cultured  ;  no  rotten  borough  of 
the  arts.  All  classes  rub  shoulders  on  the 
greasy  benches.  The  raffish  young  gentle- 
man in  gloves  must  measure  his  scholarship 
with  the  plain,  clownish  laddie  from  the 
parish  school.  They  separate,  at  the  session's 
end,  one  to  smoke  cigars  about  a  watering- 
place,  the  other  to  resume  the  labours  of  the 
field  beside  his  peasant  family.  The  first 
muster  of  a  college  class  in  Scotland  is  a 
scene   of    curious    and    painful    interest  ;    so 


1 8  Memories  and  Portraits 

many  lads,  fresh  from  the  heather,  hang  round 
the  stove  in  cloddish  embarrassment,  ruflled 
by  the  presence  of  their  smarter  comrades, 
and  afraid  of  the  sound  of  their  own  rustic 
voices.  It  was  in  these  early  days,  I  think, 
that  Professor  Blackie  won  the  affection  of 
his  pupils,  putting  these  uncouth,  umbrage- 
ous students  at  their  ease  with  ready  human 
geniality.  Thus,  at  least,  we  have  a  healthy 
democratic  atmosphere  to  breathe  in  while  at 
work;  even  when  there  is  no  cordiality  there 
is  always  a  juxtaposition  of  the  different 
classes,  and  in  the  competition  of  study  the 
intellectual  power  of  each  is  plainly  demon- 
strated to  the  other.  Our  tasks  ended,  we  of 
the  North  go  forth  as  freemen  into  the  hum- 
ming, lamplit  city.  At  five  o'clock  you  may 
sec  the  last  of  us  hiving  from  the  college 
gates,  in  the  glare  of  the  shop  windows, 
under  the  green  glimmer  of  the  winter 
sunset.  The  frost  tingles  in  our  blood; 
no  proctor  lies  in  wait  to  intercept  us ; 
till  the  bell  sounds  again,  we  are  the 
masters   of   the    world;    and    some    portion 


The  Foreigner  at  IJoiue  19 

of   our    lives    is   always    Saturday,   la    treve 
de  Dieii. 

Nor  must  we  omit  the  sense  of  the  nature 
of  his  country  and  his  country's  history 
gradually  growing  in  the  child's  mind  from 
story  and  from  observation.  A  Scottish 
child  hears  much  of  shipwreck,  outlying  iron 
skerries,  pitiless  breakers,  and  great  sea- 
lights  ;  much  of  heathery  mountains,  wild 
clans,  and  hunted  Covenanters.  Breaths 
come  to  him  in  song  of  the  distant  Cheviots 
and  the  ring  of  foraying  hoofs.  He  glories 
in  his  hard-fisted  forefathers,  of  the  iron 
girdle  and  the  handful  of  oatmeal,  who  rode 
so  swiftly  and  lived  so  sparely  on  their  raids. 
Poverty,  ill-luck,  enterprise,  and  constant 
resolution  are  the  fibres  of  the  legend  of  his 
country's  history.  The  heroes  and  kings  of 
Scotland  have  been  tragically  fated  ;  the  most 
marking  incidents  in  Scottish  history — Flod- 
den,  Darien,  or  the  Forty-five  —  were  still 
either  failures  or  defeats ;  and  the  fall  of 
Wallace  and  the  repeated  reverses  of  the 
Bruce  combine  with  the  very  smallness  of  the 


20  Memories  a7id  Portraits 

country    to    teach    rather    a    moral    than   a 

material  criterion  for  life.  Britain  is  alto- 
gether small,  the  mere  taproot  of  her  extended 
empire  ;  Scotland,  again,  which  alone  the 
Scottish  boy  adopts  in  his  imagination,  is 
but  a  little  part  of  that,  and  avowedly  cold, 
sterile  and  unpopulous.  It  is  not  so  for 
nothing.  I  once  seemed  to  have  perceived  in 
an  American  boy  a  greater  readiness  of  sym- 
pathy for  lands  that  are  great,  and  rich,  and 
growing,  like  his  own.  It  proved  to  be  quite 
otherwise :  a  mere  dumb  piece  of  boyish 
romance,  that  I  had  lacked  penetration  to 
divine.  But  the  error  serves  the  purpose 
of  my  argument  ;  for  I  am  sure,  at  least, 
that  the  heart  of  young  Scotland  will  be 
always  touched  more  nearly  by  paucity  of 
number  and  Spartan  poverty  of  life. 

So  we  may  argue,  and  yet  the  difference 
is  not  explained.  That  Shorter  Catechism 
which  I  took  as  being  so  typical  of  Scotland, 
was  yet  composed  in  the  city  of  Westminster. 
The  division  of  races  is  more  sharply  marked 
within    the   borders  of  Scotland   itself  than 


The  Foreigner  at  Home  2 1 

between  the  countries.  Galloway  and  Buchan, 
Lothian  and  Lochaber,  are  like  foreign  parts ; 
yet  you  may  choose  a  man  from  any  of 
them,  and,  ten  to  one,  he  shall  prove  to  have 
the  headmark  of  a  Scot.  A  century  and 
a  half  ago  the  Highlander  wore  a  differ* 
ent  costume,  spoke  a  different  language,  wor- 
shipped in  another  church,  held  different 
morals,  and  obeyed  a  different  social  consti- 
tution from  his  fellow-countrymen  either  of 
the  south  or  north.  Even  the  English,  it  is 
recorded,  did  not  loathe  the  Highlander  and 
the  Highland  costume  as  they  were  loathed 
by  the  remainder  of  the  Scotch.  Yet  the 
Highlander  felt  himself  a  Scot.  He  would 
willingly  raid  into  the  Scotch  lowlands  ;  but 
his  courage  failed  him  at  the  border,  and  he 
regarded  England  as  a  perilous,  unhomely 
land.  When  the  Black  Watch,  after  years  of 
foreign  service,  returned  to  Scotland,  veterans 
leaped  out  and  kissed  the  earth  at  Port 
Patrick.  They  had  been  in  Ireland,  stationed 
among  men  of  their  own  race  and  language, 
where  they  were  well  liked  and  treated  with 


2  2  Memories  and  Portrails 

affection  ;  but  it  was  the  soil  of  Galloway 
that  they  kissed  at  the  extreme  end  of  the 
hostile  lowlands,  among  a  people  who  did 
not  understand  their  speech,  and  who  had 
hated,  harried,  and  hanged  them  since  the 
dawn  of  history.  Last,  and  perhaps  most 
curious,  the  sons  of  chieftains  were  often 
educated  on  the  continent  of  Europe.  They 
went  abroad  speaking  Gaelic  ;  they  returned 
speaking,  not  English,  but  the  broad  dialec^ 
of  Scotland.  Now,  what  idea  had  they  in 
their  minds  when  they  thus,  in  thought,  iden- 
tified themselves  with  their  ancestral  enemies? 
What  was  the  sense  in  which  they  were 
Scotch  and  not  English,  or  Scotch  and  not 
Irish?  Can  a  bare  name  be  thus  influential 
on  the  minds  and  affections  of  men.  and  a 
political  aggregation  blind  them  to  the  nature 
of  facts  ?  The  story  of  the  Austrian  Empire 
would  seem  to  answer,  No;  the  far  more 
galling  business  of  Ireland  clenches  the  nega- 
tive from  nearer  home.  Is  it  common  edu- 
cation, common  morals,  a  common  language 
or    a    common     faith,    that    join    men    into 


The  Foreigner  at  Home  2  3 

nations  ?      There    were   practically   none   of 
these  in  the  case  we  are  considering. 

The  fact  remains:  in  spite  of  the  difference 
of  blood  and  language,  the  Lowlander  feels 
himself  the  sentimental  countryman  of  the 
Highlander.  When  they  meet  abroad,  they 
fall  upon  each  other's  necks  in  spirit  ;  even 
at  home  there  is  a  kind  of  clannish  intimacy 
in  their  talk.  But  from  his  compatriot 
in  the  south  the  Lowlander  stands  con- 
sciously apart.  He  has  had  a  different 
training  ;  he  obeys  different  laws  ;  he  makes 
his  will  in  other  terms,  is  otherwise  divorced 
and  married  ;  his  eyes  are  not  at  home  in 
an  English  landscape  or  with  English  houses; 
his  ear  continues  to  remark  the  English 
speech  ;  and  even  though  his  tongue  acquire 
the  Southern  knack,  he  will  still  have  a  strong 
Scotch  accent  of  the  mind. 


II 

SOME   COLLEGE    MEMORIES' 

T  AM  asked  to  write  something  (it  is  not 
specifically  stated  what)  to  the  profit 
and  glory  of  my  Alma  Mater ;  and  the  fact 
is  I  seem  to  be  in  very  neai'ly  the  same  case 
with  those  who  addressed  me,  for  while  I  am 
willing  enough  to  write  something,  I  know 
not  what  to  write.  Only  one  point  I  see, 
that  if  I  am  to  write  at  all,  it  should  be  of 
the  University  itself  and  my  own  days  under 
its  shadow  ;  of  the  things  that  are  still  the 
same  and  of  those  that  are  already  changed : 
such  talk,  in  short,  as  would  pass  naturally 
between  a  student  of  to-day  and  one  of  yes- 

^  Written  for  the   "Book"  of  the  Edinburgh  Univer^ty 
Union  Fancy  Fair. 


So7ne  College  Meinories  25 

terday,  supposing  them  to  meet   and  grow 
confidential. 

The  generations  pass  away  swiftly  enough 
on  the  high  seas  of  life ;  more  swiftly  still  in 
the  little  bubbling  backwater  of  the  quad- 
rangle ;  so  that  we  see  there,  on  a  scale 
startlingly  diminished,  the  flight  of  time  and 
the  succession  of  men.  I  looked  for  my 
name  the  other  day  in  last  year's  case  book 
of  the  Speculative.  Naturally  enough  I 
looked  for  it  near  the  end  ;  it  was  not  there, 
nor  yet  in  the  next  column,  so  that  I  began 
to  think  it  had  been  dropped  at  press  ;  and 
when  at  last  I  found  it,  mounted  on  the 
shoulders  of  so  many  successors,  and  looking 
in  that  posture  like  the  name  of  a  man  of 
ninety,  I  was  conscious  of  some  of  the  dig- 
nity of  years.  This  kind  of  dignity  of  tem- 
poral precession  is  likely,  with  prolonged  life,  to 
become  more  familiar,  possibly  less  welcome  ; 
but  I  felt  it  strongly  then,  it  is  strongly 
on  me  now,  and  I  am  the  more  embold- 
ened to  speak  with  my  successors  in  the 
tone  of  a  parent  and  a  praiser  of  things  past 


26  Memories  and  Portraits 

For,  indeed,  that  which  they  attend  13 
but  a  fallen  University ;  it  has  doubtless 
some  remains  of  good,  for  human  institutions 
decline  by  gradual  stages  ;  but  decline,  in 
spite  of  all  seeming  embellishments,  it  does  ; 
and  what  is  perhaps  more  singular,  began  to 
do  so  when  I  ceased  to  be  a  student.  Thus, 
by  an  odd  chance,  I  had  the  very  last  of  the 
very  best  of  Alma  Mater ;  the  same  thing, 
I  hear  (which  makes  it  the  more  strange),  had 
previously  happened  to  my  father ;  and  if 
they  are  good  and  do  not  die,  something  not 
at  all  unsimilar  will  be  found  in  time  to 
have  befallen  my  successors  of  to-day.  Of 
the  specific  points  of  change,  of  advantage  in 
the  past,  of  shortcoming  in  the  present,  I  must 
own  that,  on  a  near  examination,  they  look 
wondrous  cloudy.  The  chief  and  far  the  most 
lamentable  change  is  the  absence  of  a  cer- 
tain lean,  ugly,  idle,  unpopular  student,  whose 
presence  was  for  me  the  gist  and  heart  of  the 
whole  matter  ;  whose  changing  humours,  fine 
occasional  purposes  of  good,  flinching  accept- 
ance of  evil,  shiverings  on  wet,  east-windy, 


Some  College  Memories  27 

morning'  journeys  up  to  class,  infinite  yawn- 
ings  during  lecture  and  unquenchable  gusto 
in  the  delights  of  truantry,  made  up  the  sun- 
shine and  shadow  of  my  college  life.  You 
cannot  fancy  what  you  missed  in  missing 
him  ;  his  virtues,  I  make  sure,  are  inconceiv- 
able to  his  successors,  just  as  they  were 
apparently  concealed  from  his  contemporaries, 
for  I  was  practically  alone  in  the  pleasure  I 
had  in  his  society.  Poor  soul,  I  remember 
how  much  he  was  cast  down  at  times,  and 
how  life  (which  had  not  yet  begun)  seemed 
to  be  already  at  an  end,  and  hope  quite  dead, 
and  misfortune  and  dishonour,  like  physical 
presences,  dogging  him  as  he  went.  And  it 
may  be  worth  while  to  add  that  these  clouds 
rolled  away  in  their  season,  and  that  all 
clouds  roll  away  at  last,  and  the  troubles  of 
youth  in  particular  are  things  but  of  a 
moment.  So  this  student,  whom  I  have  in 
my  eye,  took  his  full  share  of  these  concerns, 
and  that  very  largely  by  his  own  fault  ;  but 
he  still  clung  to  his  fortune,  and  in  the  midst 
•of  much  misconduct,  kept  on  in  his  own  way 


2  8  Memories  and  Portraits 

learning  how  to  work  ;  and  at  last,  to  his 
wonder,  escaped  out  of  the  stage  of  student- 
ship not  openly  shamed  ;  leaving  behind  him 
the  University  of  Edinburgh  shorn  of  a  good 
deal  of  its  interest  for  myself. 

But  while  he  is  (in  more  senses  than  one) 
the  first  person,  he  is  by  no  means  the  only 
one  whom  I  regret,  or  whom  the  students  of 
to-day,  if  they  knew  what  they  had  lost, 
would  regret  also.  They  have  still  Tait,  to 
be  sure — long  may  they  have  him  ! — and 
they  have  still  Tait's  class-room,  cupola  and 
all  ;  but  think  of  what  a  different  place  it 
was  when  this  youth  of  mine  (at  least  on  roll 
days)  would  be  present  on  the  benches,  and, 
at  the  near  end  of  the  platform,  Lindsay 
senior-^  was  airing  his  robust  old  age.  It  is 
possible  my  successors  may  have  never  even 
heard  of  Old  Lindsay;  but  when  he  went,  a 
link  snapped  with  the  last  century.  He  had 
something  of  a  rustic  air,  sturdy  and  fresh 
and  plain;  he  spoke  with  a  ripe  east-country 
accent,  which  I  used  to  admire  ;  his  reminis* 

*  Professor  Tait's  laljoratory  assistant. 


So7ne  College  Memo7'ies  29 

cences  were  all  of  journeys  on  foot  or  high- 
ways busy  with  post-chaises — a  Scotland 
before  steam  ;  he  had  seen  the  coal  fire  on 
the  Isle  of  May,  and  he  regaled  me  with 
tales  of  my  own  grandfather.  Thus  he  was 
for  me  a  mirror  of  things  perished  ;  it  was 
only  in  his  memory  that  I  could  see  the  huge 
shock  of  flames  of  the  May  beacon  stream  to 
leeward,  and  the  watchers,  as  they  fed  the 
fire,  lay  hold  unscorched  of  the  windward 
bars  of  the  furnace  ;  it  was  only  thus  that 
I  could  see  my  grandfather  driving  swiftly  in 
a  gig  along  the  seaboard  road  from  Pitten- 
weem  to  Crail,  and  for  all  his  business  hurry, 
drawing  up  to  speak  good-humouredly  with 
those  he  met.  And  now,  in  his  turn,  Lind- 
say is  gone  also;  inhabits  only  the  memories 
of  other  men,  till  these  shall  follow  him  ;  and 
figures  in  my  reminiscences  as  my  grandfather 
figured  in  his. 

To  -  day,  again,  they  have  Professor 
Butcher,  and  I  hear  he  has  a  prodigious  deal 
of  Greek  ;  and  they  have  Professor  Chrystal, 
who  is  a  man   filled   with  the  mathematics. 


30  Memories  and  Portraits 

And  doubtless  these  are  set-offs.  But  they 
cannot  change  the  fact  that  Professor  Blackie 
has  retired,  and  that  Professor  Kelland  is 
dead.  No  man's  education  is  complete  or 
truly  liberal  who  knew  not  Kelland.  There 
were  unutterable  lessons  in  the  mere  sight  of 
that  frail  old  clerical  gentleman,  lively  as  a 
boy,  kind  like  a  fairy  godfather,  and  keeping 
perfect  order  in  his  class  by  the  spell  of  that 
very  kindness.  I  have  heard  him  drift  into 
reminiscences  in  class  time,  though  not  for 
long,  and  give  us  glimpses  of  old-world  life 
in  out-of-the-way  English  parishes  when  he 
was  young  ;  thus  playing  the  same  part  as 
Lindsay — the  part  of  the  surviving  memory, 
signalling  out  of  the  dark  backward  and 
abysm  of  time  the  images  of  perished  things. 
But  it  was  a  part  that  scarce  became  him  ; 
he  somehow  lacked  the  means  :  for  all  his 
silver  hair  and  worn  face,  he  was  not  truly 
old;  and  he  had  too  much  of  the  unrest  and 
petulant  fire  of  youth,  and  too  much  invin- 
cible innocence  of  mind,  to  play  the  veteran 
well.      The    time    to   measure    him    best,    to 


Some  College  Memories  3 1 

taste  (in  the  old  phrase)  his  gracious  nature, 
was  when  he  received  his  class  at  home. 
What  a  pretty  simplicity  would  he  then 
show,  trying  to  amuse  us  like  children  with 
toys  ;  and  what  an  engaging  nervousness  of 
manner,  as  fearing  that  his  efforts  might  not 
succeed  !  Truly  he  made  us  all  feel  like 
children,  and  like  children  embarrassed,  but 
at  the  same  time  filled  with  sympathy  for  the 
conscientious,  troubled  elder-boy  who  was 
working  so  hard  to  entertain  us.  A  theorist 
has  held  the  view  that  there  is  no  feature  in 
man  so  tell-tale  as  his  spectacles ;  that  the 
mouth  may  be  compressed  and  the  brow 
smoothed  artificially,  but  the  sheen  of  the 
barnacles  is  diagnostic.  And  truly  it  must 
have  been  thus  with  Kelland  ;  for  as  I  still 
fancy  I  behold  him  frisking  actively  about 
the  platform,  pointer  in  hand,  that  which  I 
seem  to  see  most  clearly  is  the  way  his 
glasses  glittered  with  affection.  I  never 
knew  but  one  other  man  who  had  (if  you 
will  permit  the  phrase)  so  kind  a  spectacle; 
and    that    was     Dr.    Appleton.       But     the 


3  2  Memories  and  Portraits 

light  in  his  case  was  tempered  and  passive  ; 
in  Kelland's  it  danced,  and  changed,  and 
flashed  vivaciously  among  the  students,  like 
a  perpetual  challenge  to  goodwill. 

I  cannot  say  so  much  about  Professor 
Blackie,  for  a  good  reason.  Kelland's  class 
I  attended,  once  even  gained  there  a  certifi- 
cate of  merit,  the  only  distinction  of  my 
University  career.  But  although  I  am  the 
holder  of  a  certificate  of  attendance  in  the 
professor's  own  hand,  I  cannot  remember  to 
hj.ve  been  present  in  the  Greek  class  above 
a  dozen  times.  Professor  Blackie  was  even 
kind  enough  to  remark  (more  than  once) 
while  in  the  very  act  of  writing  the  docu- 
ment above  referred  to,  that  he  did  not  know 
my  face.  Indeed,  I  denied  myself  many 
opportunities  ;  acting  upon  an  extensive  and 
highly  rational  system  of  truantry,  which  cost 
me  a  great  deal  of  trouble  to  put  in  exercise 
— perhaps  as  much  as  would  have  taught 
me  Greek — and  sent  me  forth  into  the  world 
and  the  profession  of  letters  with  the  merest 
shadow  of  an  education.      But  they  say  it  is 


Some  College  Memories  33 

always  a  good  thing  to  hax^e  taken  pains, 
and  that  success  is  its  own  reward,  whatever 
be  its  nature  ;  so  that,  perhaps,  even  upon 
this  I  should  plume  myself,  that  no  one  ever 
played  the  truant  with  more  deliberate  care, 
and  none  ever  had  more  certificates  for  less 
education.  One  consequence,  however,  of 
my  system  is  that  I  have  much  less  to  say 
of  Professor  Blackie  than  I  had  of  Professor 
Kelland  ;  and  as  he  is  still  alive,  and  will 
long,  I  hope,  continue  to  be  so,  it  will  not 
surprise  you  very  much  that  I  have  no  in- 
tention of  saying  it. 

Meanwhile,  how  many  others  have  gone — 
Jenkin,  Hodgson,  and  I  know  not  who 
besides  ;  and  of  that  tide  of  students  that 
used  to  throng  the  arch  and  blacken  the 
quadrangle,  how  many  are  scattered  into  the 
remotest  parts  of  the  earth,  and  how  many 
more  have  lain  down  beside  their  fathers  in 
their  "  resting-graves "!  And  again,  how 
many  of  these  last  have  not  found  their  way 
there,  ail  too  early,  through  the  stress  of 
education  !       That  was   one   thing,  at  least. 


34  Memories  and  Portraits 

from  which  my  truantiy  protected  me.  I 
am  sorry  indeed  that  I  have  no  Greek,  but  I 
should  be  sorrier  still  if  I  were  dead;  nor  do 
I  know  the  name  of  that  branch  of  know- 
ledge which  is  worth  acquiring  at  the  price 
of  a  brain  fever.  There  are  many  sordid 
tragedies  in  the  life  of  the  student,  above  all 
if  he  be  poor,  or  drunken,  or  both  ;  but 
nothing  more  moves  a  wise  man's  pity  than 
the  case  of  the  lad  who  is  in  too  much  hurry 
to  be  learned.  And  so,  for  the  sake  of  a 
moral  at  the  end,  I  will  call  up  one  more 
figure,  and  have  done.  A  student,  ambitious 
of  success  by  that  hot,  intemperate  manner 
of  study  that  now  grows  so  common,  read 
night  and  day  for  an  examination.  As  he 
went  on,  the  task  became  more  easy  to  him, 
sleep  was  more  easily  banished,  his  brain 
grew  hot  and  clear  and  more  capacious,  the 
necessary  knowledge  daily  fuller  and  more 
orderly.  It  came  to  the  eve  of  the  trial  and 
he  watched  all  night  in  his  high  chamber, 
reviewing  what  he  knew,  and  already  secure 
of  success.      His    window    looked    eastward, 


Some  College  Memories  35 

and  being  (as  I  said)  high  up,  and  the  house 
itself  standing  on  a  hill,  commanded  a  view 
over  dwindling  suburbs  to  a  country  horizon. 
At  last  my  student  drew  up  his  blind,  and 
still  in  quite  a  jocund  humour,  looked  abroad. 
Day  was  breaking,  the  east  was  tinging  with 
strange  fires,  the  clouds  breaking  up  for  the 
coming  of  the  sun  ;  and  at  the  sight,  name- 
less terror  seized  upon  his  mind.  He  was 
sane,  his  senses  were  undisturbed  ;  he  saw 
clearly,  and  knew  what  he  was  seeing,  and 
knew  that  it  was  normal  ;  but  he  could 
neither  bear  to  sec  it  nor  find  the  strength 
to  look  away,  and  fled  in  panic  from  his 
chamber  into  the  enclosure  of  the  street. 
In  the  cool  air  and  silence,  and  among  the 
sleeping  houses,  his  strength  was  renewed. 
Nothing  troubled  him  but  the  memory  of 
what  had  passed,  and  an  abject  fear  of  its 
return. 

**Gallo  canente,  spes  redit, 
Aegris  salus  refunditur, 
Lapsis  fides  revertilur," 

as    they    sang    of   old    in    Portugal    in    the 


36  Memories  and  Portraits 

Morning  Office,  But  to  him  that  good  hour 
of  cockcrow,  and  tlie  changes  of  the  dawn, 
had  brought  panic,  and  lasting  doubt,  and 
such  terror  as  he  still  shook  to  think  of. 
He  dared  not  return  to  his  lodging ;  he 
could  not  eat  ;  he  sat  down,  he  rose  up, 
he  wandered  ;  the  city  woke  about  him  with 
its  cheerful  bustle,  the  sun  climbed  overhead; 
and  still  he  grew  but  the  more  absorbed  in 
the  distress  of  his  recollection  and  the  fear 
of  his  past  fear.  At  the  appointed  hour,  he 
came  to  the  door  of  the  place  of  examina- 
tion ;  but  when  he  was  asked,  he  had  for- 
gotten his  name.  Seeing  him  so  disordered, 
they  had  not  the  heart  to  send  him  away, 
but  gave  him  a  paper  and  admitted  him, 
still  nameless,  to  the  Hall.  Vain  kindness, 
vain  efforts.  He  could  only  sit  in  a  still 
growing  horror,  writing  nothing,  ignorant  of 
all,  his  mind  filled  with  a  single  memory  of 
the  breaking  day  and  his  own  intolerable 
fear.  And  that  same  night  he  was  tossing 
in  a  brain  fever. 

People  are  afraid  of  war  and  wounds   and 


Some  College  Memories  37 

dentists,  all  with  excellent  reason  ;  but  these 
are  not  to  be  compared  with  such  chaotic 
terrors  of  the  mind  as  fell  on  this  young 
man,  and  made  him  cover  his  eyes  from  the 
innocent  morning.  We  all  have  by  our 
bedsides  the  box  of  the  Merchant  Abudah, 
thank  God,  securely  enough  shut  ;  but  when 
a  young  man  sacrifices  sleep  to  labour,  let 
him  have  a  care,  for  he  is  playing  with  the 
lock. 


Ill 

OLD  MORTALITY 
I 

'"PHERE  is  a  certain  graveyard,  looked 
upon  on  the  one  side  by  a  prison,  on 
the  other  by  the  windows  of  a  quiet  hotel  ; 
below,  under  a  steep  cliff,  it  beholds  the 
traffic  of  many  lines  of  rail,  and  the  scream 
of  the  engine  and  the  shock  of  meeting 
buffers  mount  to  it  all  day  long.  The  aisles 
are  lined  with  the  inclosed  sepulchres  of 
famiUes,  door  beyond  door,  like  houses  in  a 
street  ;  and  in  the  morning  the  shadow  of  the 
prison  turrets,  and  of  many  tall  memorials, 
fall  upon  the  graves.  There,  in  the  hot  fits 
of  youth,  I  came  to  be  unhappy.  Pleasant 
incidents  arc  woven  with  my  memory  of  the 


Old  Mortality  39 

place.  I  here  made  friends  with  a  certain 
plain  old  gentleman,  a  visitor  on  sunny 
mornings,  gravely  cheerful,  who,  with  one  eye 
upon  the  place  that  awaited  him,  chirped 
about  his  youth  like  winter  sparrows  ;  a 
beautiful  housemaid  of  the  hotel  once,  for 
some  days  together,  dumbly  flirted  with  me 
from  a  window  and  kept  my  wild  heart 
flying  ;  and  once — she  possibly  remembers 
— the  wise  Eugenia  followed  me  to  that 
austere  inclosure.  Her  hair  came  down,  and 
in  the  shelter  of  the  tomb  my  trembling 
fingers  helped  her  to  repair  the  braid.  But 
for  the  most  part  I  went  there  solitary  and, 
with  irrevocable  emotion,  pored  on  the  names 
of  the  forgotten.  Name  after  name,  and  to 
each  the  conventional  attributions  and  the 
idle  dates :  a  regiment  of  the  unknown  that 
had  been  the  joy  of  mothers,  and  had  thrilled 
with  the  illusions  of  youth,  and  at  last,  in  the 
dim  sick-room,  wrestled  with  the  pangs  of 
old  mortality.  In  that  whole  crew  of  the 
silenced  there  was  but  one  of  whom  my  fancy 
had    received    a    picture  ;    and    lie,    with    his 


40  Meinories  and  Portraits 

comely,  florid  countenance,  bewigged  and 
habited  in  scarlet,  and  in  his  day  combining 
fame  and  popularity,  stood  forth,  like  a  taunt, 
among  that  company  of  phantom  appellations. 
It  was  then  possible  to  leave  behind  us 
something  more  explicit  than  these  severe, 
monotonous  and  lying  epitaphs ;  and  the 
thing  left,  the  memory  of  a  painted  picture 
and  what  we  call  the  immortality  of  a  name, 
was  hardly  more  desirable  than  mere  oblivion. 
Even  David  Hume,  as  he  lay  composed  be- 
neath that  "  circular  idea,"  was  fainter  than  a 
dream  ;  and  when  the  housemaid,  broom  in 
hand,  smiled  and  beckoned  from  the  open 
window,  the  fame  of  that  bewigged  philoso- 
pher melted  like  a  raindrop  in  the  sea. 

And  yet  in  soberness  I  cared  as  little  for 
the  housemaid  as  for  David  Hume.  The 
interests  of  youth  are  rarely  frank ;  his 
passions,  like  Noah's  dove,  come  home  to 
roost.  The  fire,  sensibility,  and  volume  of 
his  own  nature,  that  is  all  that  he  has  learned 
to  recognise.  The  tumultuary  and  gray 
tide  of  life,  the  empire  of  routine,  the  unre- 


Old  Mortality  41 

joicing  faces  of  his  elders,  fill  him  with  con- 
temptuous surprise  ;  there  also  he  seems  to 
walk  among  the  tombs  of  spirits  ;  and  it  is 
only  in  the  course  of  years,  and  after  much 
rubbing  with  his  fellow-men,  that  he  begins 
by  glimpses  to  see  himself  from  without  and 
his  fellows  from  within  :  to  know  his  own  for 
one  among  the  thousand  undenoted  coun- 
tenances of  the  city  street,  and  to  divine  in 
others  the  throb  of  human  agony  and  hope. 
In  the  meantime  he  will  avoid  the  hospital 
doors,  the  pale  faces,  the  cripple,  the  sweet 
whiff  of  chloroform — for  there,  on  the  most 
thoughtless,  the  pains  of  others  are  burned 
home  ;  but  he  will  continue  to  walk,  in  a 
divine  self-pity,  the  aisles  of  the  forgotten 
graveyard.  The  length  of  man's  life,  which 
is  endless  to  the  brave  and  busy,  is  scorned 
by  his  ambitious  thought.  He  cannot  bear 
to  have  come  for  so  little,  and  to  go  again  so 
wholly.  He  cannot  bear,  above  all,  in  that 
brief  scene,  to  be  still  idle,  and  by  way  of 
cure,  neglects  the  little  that  he  has  to  do. 
The  parable  of  the  talent  is  the  brief  epitome 


42  Memories  and  Portraits 

of  youth.  To  believe  in  immortality  is  one 
thing,  but  it  is  first  needful  to  believe  in  life. 
Denunciatory  preachers  seem  not  to  suspect 
that  they  may  be  taken  gravely  and  in  evil 
part ;  that  young  men  may  come  to  think  of 
time  as  of  a  moment,  and  with  the  pride  of 
Satan  wave  back  the  inadequate  gift.  Yet 
here  is  a  true  peril  ;  this  it  is  that  sets  them 
to  pace  the  graveyard  alleys  and  to  read, 
with  strange  extremes  of  pity  and  derision, 
the  memorials  of  the  dead. 

Books  were  the  proper  remedy :  books  of 
vivid  human  import,  forcing  upon  their  minds 
the  issues,  pleasures,  busyness,  importance  and 
immediacy  of  that  life  in  which  they  stand  ; 
books  of  smiling  or  heroic  temper,  to  excite 
or  to  console  ;  books  of  a  large  design, 
shadowing  the  complexity  of  that  game  of 
consequences  to  which  we  all  sit  down,  the 
hanger-back  not  least.  But  the  average 
sermon  flees  the  point,  disporting  itself  in 
that  eternity  of  which  wc  know,  and  need  to 
know,  so  little  ;  avoiding  the  bright,  crowded, 
and  momentous   fields  of  life  where  destiny 


Old  Mo7'tality  43 

awaits  us.  Upon  the  average  book  a  writer 
may  be  silent ;  lie  may  set  it  down  to  his  ill- 
hap  that  when  his  own  youth  was  in  the 
acrid  fermentation,  he  should  have  fallen  and 
fed  upon  the  cheerless  fields  of  Obermann. 
Yet  to  Mr.  Arnold,  who  led  him  to  these 
pastures,  he  still  bears  a  grudge.  The  day 
is  perhaps  not  far  off  when  people  will  begin 
to  count  Moll  Flanders,  ay,  or  The  Country 
Wife,  more  wholesome  and  more  pious  diet 
than  these,  guide-books  to  consistent  egoism. 
But  the  most  inhuman  of  boys  soon 
wearies  of  the  inhumanity  of  Obermann.  And 
even  while  I  still  continued  to  be  a  haunter 
of  the  graveyard,  I  began  insensibly  to  turn 
my  attention  to  the  grave-diggers,  and  was 
weaned  out  of  myself  to  observe  the  conduct 
of  visitors.  This  was  dayspring,  indeed,  to 
a  lad  in  such  great  darkness.  Not  that  I 
began  to  see  men,  or  to  try  to  see  them, 
from  within,  nor  to  learn  charity  and 
modesty  and  justice  from  the  sight  ;  but  still 
stared  at  them  externally  from  the  prison 
windows  of  my  affectation.      Once  I  remem- 


44  Memories  and  Portraits 

ber  to  have  observed  two  working-women 
with  a  baby  halting  by  a  grave  ;  there  was 
something  monumental  in  the  grouping,  one 
upright  carrying  the  child,  the  other  with 
bowed  face  crouching  by  her  side.  A  wreath 
of  immortelles  under  a  glass  dome  had  thus 
attracted  them  ;  and,  drawing  near,  I  over- 
heard their  judgment  on  that  wonder.  "  Eh  ! 
what  extravagance  !  "  To  a  youth  afflicted 
with  the  callosity  of  sentiment,  this  quaint 
and  pregnant  saying  appeared  merely  base. 

My  acquaintance  with  grave-diggers,  con- 
sidering its  length,  was  unremarkable.  One, 
indeed,  whom  I  found  plying  his  spade  in  the 
red  evening,  high  above  Allan  Water  and  in 
the  shadow  of  Dunblane  Cathedral,  told  me  of 
his  acquaintance  with  the  birds  that  still 
attended  on  his  labours  ;  how  some  would 
even  perch  about  him,  waiting  for  their  prey  ; 
and  in  a  true  Sexton's  Calendar,  how  the 
species  varied  with  the  season  of  the  year. 
But  this  was  the  very  poetry  of  the  profes- 
sion. The  others  whom  I  knew  were  some- 
what dry.      A  faint   flavour  of  the  gardenei 


Old  Mortality  45 

hung  about  them,  but  sophisticated  and 
disbloomed.  They  had  engagements  to 
keep,  not  alone  with  the  deliberate  series  of 
the  seasons,  but  with  mankind's  clocks  and 
hour-long  measurement  of  time.  And  thus 
there  was  no  leisure  for  the  relishing  pinch, 
or  the  hour-long  gossip,  foot  on  spade. 
They  were  men  wrapped  up  in  their  grim 
business  ;  they  liked  well  to  open  long-closed 
family  vaults,  blowing  in  the  key  and  throw- 
ing wide  the  grating  ;  and  they  carried  in 
their  minds  a  calendar  of  names  and  dates. 
It  would  be  '•'  in  fifty-twa  "  that  such  a  tomb 
was  last  opened  for  "  Miss  Jemimy."  It  was 
thus  they  spoke  of  their  past  patients — famili- 
arly but  not  without  respect,  like  old  family 
servants.  Here  is  indr-^d  a  servant,  whom  we 
forget  that  we  possess  ;  who  does  not  wait  at 
the  bright  table,  or  run  at  the  bell's  summons, 
but  patiently  smokes  his  pipe  beside  the 
mortuary  fire,  and  in  his  faithful  memory 
notches  the  burials  of  our  race.  To  suspect 
Shakespeare  in  his  maturity  of  a  superficial 
touch  savours  of  paradox  ;  yet  he  was  surely 


46  Memories  and  Portraits 

in  error  when  he  attributed  insensibility  to 
the  digger  of  the  grave.  But  perhaps  it  is 
on  Hamlet  that  the  charge  should  lie ;  or 
perhaps  the  English  sexton  differs  from  the 
Scotch.  The  "  goodman  delver,"  reckoning 
up  his  years  of  office,  might  have  at  least 
suggested  other  thoughts.  It  is  a  pride 
common  among  sextons.  A  cabinet-maker 
does  not  count  his  cabinets,  nor  even  an 
author  his  volumes,  save  when  they  stare 
upon  him  from  the  shelves  ;  but  the  grave- 
digger  numbers  his  graves.  He  would  in- 
deed be  something  different  from  human  if 
his  solitary  open-air  and  tragic  labours  left 
not  a  broad  mark  upon  his  mind.  There, 
in  his  tranquil  aisle,  apart  from  city  clamour, 
among  the  cats  and  robins  and  the  ancient 
effigies  and  legends  of  the  tomb,  he  waits 
the  continual  passage  of  his  contemporaries, 
falling  like  minute  drops  into  eternity. 
As  they  fall,  he  counts  them  ;  and  this 
enumeration,  which  was  at  first  perhaps 
appalling  to  his  soul,  in  the  process  of  years 
and  by  the  kindly  influence  of  habit  grows 


Old  Mortality  47 

to  be  his  pride  and  pleasure.  There  arc 
many  common  stories  telling  how  he  piques 
himself  on  crowded  cemeteries.  But  I  will 
rather  tell  of  the  old  grave-digger  of  Monk- 
ton,  to  whose  unsuffering  bedside  the  minister 
was  summoned.  He  dwelt  in  a  cottage 
built  into  the  wall  of  the  churchyard  ;  and 
through  a  bull's-eye  pane  above  his  bed  he 
could  see,  as  he  lay  dying,  the  rank  grasses 
and  the  upright  and  recumbent  stones.  Dr. 
Laurie  was,  I  think,  a  Moderate :  'tis  cer- 
tain, at  least,  that  he  took  a  veiy  Roman 
view  of  deathbed  dispositions  ;  for  he  told 
the  old  man  that  he  had  lived  beyond  man's 
natural  years,  that  his  life  had  been  easy 
and  reputable,  that  his  family  had  all  grown 
up  and  been  a  credit  to  his  care,  and  that  it 
now  behoved  him  unregretfully  to  gird  his 
loins  and  follow  the  majority.  The  grave- 
digger  heard  him  out ;  then  he  raised  himself 
upon  one  elbow,  and  with  the  other  hand 
pointed  through  the  window  to  the  scene  of 
his  life-long  labours.  "  Doctor,"  he  said,  "  I 
ha'e   laid    three   hunncr   and    fower-score  in 


48  Memories  and  Portraits 

that  kirkyaird  ;  an  it  had  been  His  wull," 
indicating  Heaven,  "  I  would  ha'e  likit  weal 
to  ha'e  made  out  the  fower  hunner."  But  it 
was  not  to  be  ;  this  tragedian  of  the  fifth 
act  had  now  another  part  to  play  ;  and  the 
time  had  come  when  others  were  to  gird 
and  carry  him. 

II 

I  would  fain  strike  a  note  that  should  be 
more  heroical  ;  but  the  ground  of  all  youth's 
suffering,  solitude,  hysteria,  and  haunting  of 
the  grave,  is  nothing  else  than  naked,  igno- 
rant selfishness.  It  is  himself  that  he  sees 
dead  ;  those  are  his  virtues  that  are  for- 
gotten ;  his  is  the  vague  epitaph.  Pity  him 
but  the  more,  if  pity  be  your  cue  ;  for  where 
a  man  is  all  pride,  vanity,  and  personal  aspir- 
ation, he  goes  through  fire  unshielded.  In 
every  part  and  corner  of  our  life,  to  lose 
oneself  is  to  be  gainer ;  to  forget  oneself  is 
to  be  happy  ;  and  this  poor,  laughable  and 
tragic  fool  has  not  yet  learned  the  rudi- 
ments ;    himself,    giant    Prometheus,   is   still 


Old  Mortality  49 

ironed  on  the  peaks  of  Caucasus.  But  by 
and  by  his  truant  interests  will  leave  that 
tortured  body,  slip  abroad  and  gather  flowers. 
Then  shall  death  appear  before  him  in  an 
altered  guise  ;  no  longer  as  a  doom  peculiar 
to  himself,  whether  fate's  crowning  injustice 
or  his  own  last  vengeance  upon  those  who 
fail  to  value  him  ;  but  now  as  a  power  that 
wounds  him  far  more  tenderly,  not  without 
solemn  compensations,  taking  and  giving, 
bereaving  and  yet  storing  up. 

The  first  step  for  all  is  to  learn  to  the 
dregs  our  own  ignoble  fallibility.  When  we 
have  fallen  through  storey  after  storey  of  our 
vanity  and  aspiration,  and  sit  rueful  among 
the  ruins,  then  it  is  that  we  begin  to  measure 
the  stature  of  our  friends  :  how  they  stand 
between  us  and  our  own  contempt,  believing 
in  our  best ;  how,  linking  us  with  others,  and 
still  spreading  wide  the  influential  circle, 
they  weave  us  in  and  in  with  the  fabric  of 
contemporary  life  ;  and  to  what  petty  size 
they  dwarf  the  virtues  and  the  vices  that 
appeared  gigantic  in  our  youth.      So  that  at 


50  Memories  and  Portraits 

the  last,  when  such  a  pin  falls  out — when 
there  vanishes  in  the  least  breath  of  time  one 
of  those  rich  magazines  of  life  on  which  we 
drew  for  our  supply — when  he  who  had  first 
dawned  upon  us  as  a  face  among  the  faces  of 
the  city,  and,  still  growing,  came  to  bulk  on 
our  regard  with  those  clear  features  of  the 
loved  and  living  man,  falls  in  a  breath  to 
memory  and  shadow,  there  falls  along  with 
him  a  whole  wing  of  the  palace  of  our  hfe.    j 

III 

One  such  face  I  now  remember ;  one 
such  blank  some  half  a  dozen  of  us  labour 
to  dissemble.  In  his  youth  he  was  most 
beautiful  in  person,  most  serene  and  genial 
by  disposition  ;  full  of  racy  words  and  quaint 
thoughts.  Laughter  attended  on  his  coming. 
He  had  the  air  of  a  great  gentleman,  jovial 
and  royal  with  his  equals,  and  to  the  poorest 
student  gentle  and  attentive.  Power  seemed 
to  reside  in  him  exhaustless  ;  we  saw  him 
stoop  to  play  with  us,  but  held  him  marked 


Old  Mortality  5 1 

for  higher  destinies  ;  we  loved  his  notice ; 
and  I  have  rarely  had  my  pride  more  gratified 
than  when  he  sat  at  my  father's  table,  my 
acknowledged  friend.  So  he  walked  among 
us,  both  hands  full  of  gifts,  carrying  with  non- 
chalance the  seeds  of  a  most  influential  life. 

The  powers  and  the  ground  of  friendship 
is  a  mystery  ;  but,  looking  back,  I  can  dis- 
cern that,  in  part,  we  loved  the  thing  he  was, 
for  some  shadow  of  what  he  was  to  be.  For 
with  all  his  beauty,  power,  breeding,  urbanity 
and  mirth,  there  was  in  those  days  some- 
thing soulless  in  our  friend.  He  would 
astonish  us  by  sallies,  witty,  innocent  and 
inhumane  ;  and  by  a  misapplied  Johnsonian 
pleasantry,  demolish  honest  sentiment.  I  can 
still  see  and  hear  him,  as  he  went  his  way 
along  the  lamplit  streets,  La  ci  darem  la  niano 
on  his  lips,  a  noble  figure  of  a  youth,  but 
following  vanity  and  incredulous  of  good  ; 
and  sure  enough,  somewhere  on  the  high 
seas  of  life,  with  his  health,  his  hopes,  his 
patrimony  and  his  self-respect,  miserably 
went  down. 


5  2  Mejuories  and  Portraits 

From  this  disaster,  like  a  spent  swimmer, 
he  came  desperately  ashore,  bankrupt  of 
money  and  consideration  ;  creeping  to  the 
family  he  had  deserted  ;  with  broken  wing, 
never  more  to  rise.  But  in  his  face  there 
was  a  light  of  knowledge  that  was  new  to  it. 
Of  the  wounds  of  his  body  he  was  never 
healed  ;  died  of  them  gradually,  with  clear- 
eyed  resignation  ;  of  his  wounded  pride,  we 
knew  only  from  his  silence.  He  returned  to 
that  city  where  he  had  lorded  it  in  his 
ambitious  youth  ;  lived  there  alone,  seeing 
few;  striving  to  retrieve  the  irretrievable  ;  at 
times  still  grappling  with  that  mortal  frailty 
that  had  brought  him  down ;  still  joying  in 
his  friend's  successes  ;  his  laugh  still  ready 
but  with  kindlier  music  ;  and  over  all  his 
thoughts  the  shadow  of  that  unalterable  law 
which  he  had  disavowed  and  which  had 
brought  him  low.  Lastly,  when  his  bodily 
evils  had  quite  disabled  him,  he  lay  a  great 
while  dying,  still  without  complaint,  still 
finding  interests  ;  to  his  last  step  gentle, 
urbane  and  with  the  will  to  smile. 


Old  Mortality  53 

The  tale  of  this  great  failure  is,  to  those 
who  remained  true  to  him,  the  tale  of  a 
success.  In  his  youth  he  took  thought  for 
no  one  but  himself;  when  he  came  ashore 
again,  his  whole  armada  lost,  he  seemed  to 
think  of  none  but  others.  Such  was  his 
tenderness  for  others,  such  his  instinct  of  fine 
courtesy  and  pride,  that  of  that  impure 
passion  of  remorse  he  never  breathed  a 
syllable ;  even  regret  was  rare  with  him,  and 
pointed  with  a  jest.  You  would  not  have 
dreamed,  if  you  had  known  him  then,  that  this 
was  that  great  failure,  that  beacon  to  young 
men,  over  whose  fall  a  whole  society  had 
hissed  and  pointed  fingers.  Often  have  we 
gone  to  him,  red-hot  with  our  own  hopeful 
sorrows,  railing  on  the  rose-leaves  in  our 
princely  bed  of  life,  and  he  would  patiently 
give  ear  and  wisely  counsel  ;  and  it  was  only 
upon  some  return  of  our  own  thoughts  that 
we  were  reminded  what  manner  of  man 
this  was  to  whom  we  disembosomed:  a  man, 
by  his  own  fault,  ruined  ;  shut  out  of  the 
gjarden  of  his  gifts  ;  his  whole  city  of  hope 


5  4  Memories  and  Portraits 

both  ploughed  and  salted  ;  silently  awaiting 
the  deliverer.  Then  something  took  us  by 
the  throat  ;  and  to  see  him  there,  so  gentle, 
patient,  brave  and  pious,  oppressed  but  not 
cast  down,  sorrow  was  so  swallowed  up  in 
admiration  that  we  could  not  dare  to  pity 
him.  Even  if  the  old  fault  flashed  out  again, 
it  but  awoke  our  wonder  that,  in  that  lost 
battle,  he  should  have  still  the  energy  to 
fight.  He  had  gone  to  ruin  with  a  kind  of 
kingly  abandon^  like  one  who  condescended  ; 
but  once  ruined,  with  the  lights  all  out,  he 
fought  as  for  a  kingdom.  Most  men,  find- 
ing themselves  the  authors  of  their  own 
disgrace,  rail  the  louder  against  God  or 
destiny.  Most  men,  when  they  repent,  oblige 
their  friends  to  share  the  bitterness  of  that 
repentance.  But  he  had  held  an  inquest 
and  passed  sentence  :  mene,  viene ;  and  con- 
demned himself  to  smiling  silence.  He  had 
given  trouble  enough  ;  had  earned  misfortune 
amply,  and  foregone  the  right  to  murmur. 

Thus  was  our  old  comrade,  like   Samson, 
careless  in  his  days  of  strength  ;  but  on  the 


Old  Mortality  5  5 

coming  of  adversity,  and  when  that  strength 
was  gone  that  had  betrayed  him — "  for  our 
strength  is  weakness  " — he  began  to  blossom 
and  bring  forth.  Well,  now,  he  is  out  of  the 
fight :  the  burden  that  he  bore  thrown  down 
before  the  great  deliverer.      We 

"  in  the  vast  cathedral  leave  him  : 
God  accept  him, 
Christ  receive  him  1" 


IV 

If  we  go  now  and  look  on  these  innumer- 
able epitaphs,  the  pathos  and  the  irony  are 
strangely  fled.  They  do  not  stand  merely 
to  the  dead,  these  foolish  monuments  ;  they 
are  pillars  and  legends  set  up  to  glorify  the 
difficult  but  not  desperate  life  of  man.  This 
ground  is  hallowed  by  the  heroes  of  defeat. 

I  see  the  indifferent  pass  before  my  friend's 
last  resting-place  ;  pause,  with  a  shrug  of 
pity,  marvelling  that  so  rich  an  argosy  had 
sunk.  A  pity,  now  that  he  is  done  with 
suffeiing,  a  pity  most  uncalled   for,  and   an 


56  Memories  and  P or tj^aits 

ignorant  wonder.  Before  those  who  loved 
him,  his  memory  shines  lil<:e  a  reproach ; 
they  honour  him  for  silent  lessons ;  they 
cherish  his  example  ;  and  in  what  remains 
before  them  of  their  toil,  fear  to  be  unworthy 
of  the  dead.  For  this  proud  man  was  one  of 
those  who  prospered  in  the  valley  of  humilia- 
tion;— of  whom  Bunyan  wrote  that,  "  Though 
Christian  bad  the  hard  hap  to  meet  in  the 
valley  with  Apollyon,  yet  I  must  tell  you, 
that  in  former  times  men  have  met  with 
angels  here  ;  have  found  pearls  here  ;  and 
have  in  this  place  found  the  words  of  life." 


IV 

A  COLLEGE    MAGAZINE 


A  LL  through  my  boyhood  and  youth,  I  was 
known  and  pointed  out  for  the  pattern 
of  an  idler;  and  yet  I  was  always  busy  on  my 
own  private  end,  which  was  to  learn  to  write. 
I  kept  always  two  books  in  my  pocket,  one 
to  read,  one  to  write  in.  As  I  walked,  my 
mind  was  busy  fitting  what  I  saw  with  ap- 
propriate words ;  when  I  sat  by  the  roadside, 
I  would  either  read,  or  a  pencil  and  a  penny 
version-book  would  be  in  my  hand,  to  note 
down  the  features  of  the  scene  or  commemo- 
rate some  halting  stanzas.  Thus  I  lived 
with  words.  And  what  I  thus  wrote  was  for 
no   ulterior  use,   it   was    written    consciously 


5  8      .     Memories  and  Portraits 

for  practice.  It  was  not  so  much  that  I 
wished  to  be  an  author  (though  I  wished 
that  too)  as  that  I  had  vowed  that  I  would 
learn  to  write.  That  was  a  proficiency  that 
tempted  me  ;  and  I  practised  to  acquire  it, 
as  men  learn  to  whittle,  in  a  wager  with 
myself.  Description  was  the  principal  field 
of  my  exercise  ;  for  to  any  one  with  ^enses 
there  is  always  something  worth  describing, 
and  town  and  country  are  but  one  continu- 
ous subject.  But  I  worked  in  other  ways 
also;  often  accompanied  my  walks  with  dra- 
matic dialogues,  in  which  I  played  many 
parts  ;  and  often  exercised  myself  in  writing 
down  conversations  from  memory. 

This  was  all  excellent,  no  doubt  ;  so  were 
the  diaries  I  sometimes  tried  to  keep,  but 
always  and  very  speedily  discarded,  finding 
them  a  school  of  posturing  and  melancholy 
self-deception.  And  yet  this  was  not  the 
most  efficient  part  of  my  training.  Good 
though  it  was,  it  only  taught  me  (so  far  as  I 
have  learned  them  at  all)  the  lower  and  less 
intellectual  elements  of  the  art,  the  choice  of 


A  College  Magazine  59 

the  essential  note  and  the  right  word  :  things 
that  to  a  happier  constitution  had  perhaps 
come  by  nature.  And  regarded  as  training, 
it  had  one  grave  defect  ;  for  it  set  nne  no 
standard  of  achievement.  So  that  there  was 
perhaps  more  profit,  as  there  was  certainly 
more  effort,  in  my  secret  labours  at  home. 
Whenever  I  read  a  book  or  a  passage  that 
particularly  pleased  me,  in  which  a  thing 
was  said  or  an  effect  rendered  with  propriety, 
in  which  there  was  either  some  conspicuous 
force  or  some  happy  distinction  in  the  style, 
I  must  sit  down  at  once  and  set  myself  to 
ape  that  quality.  I  was  unsuccessful,  and  I 
knew  it  ;  and  tried  again,  and  was  again  un- 
successful and  always  unsuccessful  ;  but  at 
least  in  these  vain  bouts,  I  got  some  practice 
in  rhythm,  in  harmony,  in  construction  and 
the  co-ordination  of  parts.  I  have  thus  played 
the  sedulous  ape  to  Ilazlitt,  to  Lamb,  to 
Wordsworth,  to  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  to  De- 
foe, to  Hawthorne,  to  Montaigne,  to  Baude- 
laire and  to  Obermann.  I  remember  one  of 
these     monkey     tricks,    which     was     called 


6o  Memories  and  Portraits 

The  Vanity  of  Morals :  it  was  to  have  had 
a  second  part,  The  Vanity  of  Knotvledge ; 
and  as  I  had  neither  morality  nor  scholar- 
ship, the  names  were  apt ;  but  the  second 
part  was  never  attempted,  and  the  first  part 
was  written  (which  is  my  reason  for  recalling 
it,  ghostlike,  from  its  ashes)  no  less  than 
three  times  :  first  in  the  manner  of  Hazlitt, 
second  in  the  manner  of  Ruskin,  who  had 
cast  on  me  a  passing  spell,  and  third,  in  a 
laborious  pasticcio  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne, 
So  with  my  other  works  :  Cain,  an  epic,  was 
(save  the  mark  !)  an  imitation  of  Sordello  : 
Robiji  Hood,  a  tale  in  verse,  took  an  eclectic 
middle  course  among  the  fields  of  Keats, 
Chaucer  and  Morris:  in  Mounioiith,  a  tragedy, 
I  reclined  on  the  bosom  of  Mr.  Swinburne ; 
in  my  innumerable  gouty-footed  lyrics,  I  fol- 
lowed many  masters  ;  in  the  first  draft  of  The 
Kings  Pardon,  a  tragedy,  I  was  on  the  trail 
of  no  lesser  man  than  John  Webster  ;  in  the 
second  draft  of  the  same  piece,  with  stagger- 
ing versatility,  I  had  shifted  m}''  allegiance 
tt)    Congreve,   and    of   course  conceived    my 


A  College  Magazine  6 1 

fable  in  a  less  serious  vein — for  it  was  not 
Congreve's  verse,  it  was  his  exquisite  prose, 
that  I  admired  and  sought  to  copy.  Even 
at  the  age  of  thirteen  I  had  tried  to  do 
justice  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  famous  city 
of  Peebles  in  the  style  of  the  Book  of  Snobs. 
So  I  might  go  on  for  ever,  through  all  my 
abortive  novels,  and  down  to  my  later  plays, 
of  which  I  think  more  tenderly,  for  they 
were  not  only  conceived  at  first  under  the 
bracing  influence  of  old  Dumas,  but  have 
met  with  resurrections  :  one,  strangely  bet- 
tered by  another  hand,  came  on  the  stage 
itself  and  was  played  by  bodily  actors  ;  the 
other,  originally  know  as  Seviiramis :  a 
Tragedy,  I  have  observed  on  bookstalls  under 
the  alias  of  Prince  Otto.  But  enough  has 
been  said  to  show  by  what  arts  of  imperson- 
ation, and  in  what  purely  ventriloquial  efforts 
I  first  saw  my  words  on  paper. 

That,  like  it  or  not,  is  the  way  to  learn  to 
write  ;  whether  I  have  profited  or  not,  that  is 
the  way.  It  was  so  Keats  learned,  and  there 
was  never  a  finer  temperament  for  literature 


62  Memories  and  Portraits 

than  Keats's  ;  it  was  so,  if  wc  could  trace  it 
out,  that  all  men  have  learned  ;  and  that  is 
why  a  revival  of  letters  is  always  accompanied 
or  heralded  by  a  cast  back  to  earlier  and 
fresher  models.  Perhaps  I  hear  some  one  cry 
out :  But  this  is  not  the  way  to  be  original ! 
It  is  not ;  nor  is  there  any  way  but  to  be 
born  so.  Nor  yet,  if  you  are  born  original, 
is  there  anything  in  this  training  that  shall 
clip  the  wings  of  your  originality.  There 
can  be  none  more  original  than  Montaigne, 
neither  could  any  be  more  unlike  Cicero  ;  yet 
no  craftsman  can  fail  to  see  how  much  the 
one  must  have  tried  in  his  time  to  imitate  the 
other.  Burns  is  the  very  type  of  a  prime 
force  in  letters  :  he  was  of  all  men  the  most 
imitative.  Shakespeare  himself,  the  imperial, 
proceeds  directly  from  a  school.  It  is  only 
from  a  school  that  we  can  expect  to  have 
good  writers  ;  it  is  almost  invariably  from  a 
school  that  great  writers,  these  lawless  excep- 
tions, issue.  Nor  is  there  anything  here  that 
should  astonish  the  considerate.  Before  he 
can   tell  what  cadences  he  truly  prefers,  the 


A  College  Magazine  63 

student  should  have  tried  all  that  are  pos- 
sible ;  before  he  can  choose  and  preserve  a 
fitting  key  of  words,  he  should  long  have 
practised  the  literary  scales  ;  and  it  is  only 
after  years  of  such  gymnastic  that  he  can  sit 
down  at  last,  legions  of  words  swarming  to 
his  call,  dozens  of  turns  of  phrase  simul- 
taneously bidding  for  his  choice,  and  he 
himself  knowing  what  he  wants  to  do  and 
(within  the  narrow  limit  of  a  man's  ability) 
able  to  do  it. 

And  it  is  the  great  point  of  these  imita- 
tions that  there  still  shines  beyond  the 
student's  reach  his  inimitable  model.  Let 
him  try  as  he  please,  he  is  still  sure  of  failure; 
and  it  is  a  very  old  and  a  very  true  saying 
that  failure  is  the  only  highroad  to  success. 
I  must  have  had  some  disposition  to  learn  ; 
for  I  clear-sightedly  condemned  my  own 
performances.  I  liked  doing  them  indeed  ; 
but  when  they  were  done,  I  could  see  they 
were  rubbish.  In  consequence,  I  very  rarely 
showed  them  even  to  my  friends  ;  and  such 
friends  as  I  chose  to  be  my  confidants  I  must 


64  Memories  and  Portraits 

have  chosen  well,  for  they  had  the  friendliness 
to  be  quite  plain  with  me.  "  Padding,"  said 
one.  Another  wrote  :  "  I  cannot  understand 
why  you  do  lyrics  so  badly."  No  more 
could  I !  Thrice  I  put  myself  in  the  way 
of  a  more  authoritative  rebuff,  by  send- 
ing a  paper  to  a  magazine.  These  were 
returned  ;  and  I  was  not  surprised  nor  even 
pained.  If  they  had  not  been  looked  at,  as 
(like  all  amateurs)  I  suspected  was  the  case, 
there  was  no  good  in  repeating  the  experi- 
ment ;  if  they  had  been  looked  at — well, 
then  I  had  not  yet  learned  to  write,  and  I 
must  keep  on  learning  and  living.  Lastly,  I 
had  a  piece  of  good  fortune  which  is  the 
occasion  of  this  paper,  and  by  which  I  was 
able  to  see  my  literature  in  print,  and  to 
measure  experimentally  how  far  I  .stood  from 
the  favour  of  the  public. 


A  College  Magazine  65 

II 

The  Speculative  Society  is  a  body  of  some 
antiquity,  and  has  counted  among  its  mem- 
bers Scott,  Brougham,  Jeffrey,  Horner,  Ben- 
jamin Constant,  Robert  Emmet,  and  many 
a  legal  and  local  celebrity  besides.  By  an 
accident,  variously  explained,  it  has  its 
rooms  in  the  very  buildings  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Edinburgh  :  a  hall,  Turkey-carpeted, 
hung  with  pictures,  looking,  when  lighted  up 
at  night  with  fire  and  candle,  like  some 
goodly  dining-room  ;  a  passage-like  library, 
walled  with  books  in  their  wire  cages  ;  and  a 
corrfdor  with  a  fireplace,  benches,  a  table, 
many  prints  of  famous  members,  and  a  mural 
tablet  to  the  virtues  of  a  former  secretary. 
Here  a  member  can  warm  himself  and  loaf 
and  read  ;  here,  in  defiance  of  Senatus-con- 
sults,  he  can  smoke.  The  Senatus  looks 
askance  at  these  privileges  ;  looks  even  with 
a  somewhat  vinegar  aspect  on  the  whole 
society;  which  argues  a  lack  of  proportion  in 
the   learned   mind,  for  the  world,  we  may  be 


66  Memories  and  Portraits 

sure,  will  prize  far  higher  this  haunt  of  dead 
lions  than  all  the  living  dogs  of  the  profes- 
sorate. 

I  sat  one  December  morning  in  the  library 
of  the  Speculative  ;  a  very  humble -minded 
youth,  though  it  was  a  virtue  I  never  had 
much  credit  for  ;  yet  proud  of  my  privileges 
as  a  member  of  the  Spec. ;  proud  of  the  pipe 
I  was  smoking  in  the  teeth  of  the  Senatus  ; 
and  in  particular,  proud  of  being  in  the  next 
room  to  three  very  distinguished  students, 
who  were  then  conversing  beside  the  corridor 
fire.  One  of  these  has  now  his  name  on  the 
back  of  several  volumes,  and  his  voice,  I 
learn,  is  influential  in  the  law  courts.  Of 
the  death  of  the  second,  you  have  just  been 
reading  what  I  had  to  say.  And  the  third 
also  has  escaped  out  of  that  battle  of  life 
in  which  he  fought  so  hard,  it  may  be  so 
unwisely.  They  were  all  three,  as  I  have 
said,  notable  students  ;  but  this  was  the 
most  conspicuous.  Wealthy,  handsome,  am- 
bitious, adventurous,  diplomatic,  a  reader  of 
Balzac,  and  of  all  men  that  I  have  known. 


A  College  Magazine  67 

the  most  like  to  one  of  Balzac's  characters, 
he  led  a  life,  and  was  attended  by  an  ill 
fortune,  that  could  be  properly  set  forth  only 
in  the  Coinedie  Hiimaine.  He  had  then  his 
eye  on  Parliament  ;  and  soon  after  the  time 
of  which  I  write,  he  made  a  showy  speech  at 
a  political  dinner,  was  cried  up  to  heaven 
next  day  in  the  Conrant,  and  the  day  after 
was  dashed  lower  than  earth  with  a  charge 
of  plagiarism  in  the  Scotsman.  Report 
would  have  it  (I  daresay,  very  wrongly)  that 
he  was  betrayed  by  one  in  whom  he  particu- 
larly trusted,  and  that  the  author  of  the 
charge  had  learned  its  truth  from  his  own 
lips.  Thus,  at  least,  he  was  up  one  day  on 
a  pinnacle,  admired  and  envied  by  all  ;  and 
the  next,  though  still  but  a  boy,  he  was 
publicly  disgraced.  The  blow  would  have 
broken  a  less  finely  tempered  spirit ;  and 
even  him  I  suppose  it  rendered  reckless ; 
for  he  took  flight  to  London,  and  there,  in  a 
fast  club,  disposed  of  the  bulk  of  his  con- 
siderable patrimony  in  the  space  of  one 
winter.       For    years    thereafter    he    lived    I 


68  Memo7des  and  Portraits 

know  not  how ;  always  well  dressed,  always 
in  good  hotels  and  good  society,  always  with 
empty  pockets.  The  charm  of  his  manner 
may  have  stood  him  in  good  stead  ;  but 
though  my  own  manners  are  very  agreeable, 
I  have  never  found  in  them  a  source  of 
livelihood ;  and  to  explain  the  miracle  of 
his  continued  existence,  I  must  fall  back 
upon  the  theory  of  the  philosopher,  that  in 
his  case,  as  in  all  of  the  same  kind,  "there 
was  a  suffering  relative  in  the  background." 
From  this  genteel  eclipse  he  reappeared 
upon  the  scene,  and  presently  sought  me 
out  in  the  character  of  a  generous  editor. 
It  is  in  this  part  that  I  best  remember  him  ; 
tall,  slender,  with  a  not  ungraceful  stoop ; 
looking  quite  like  a  refined  gentleman,  and 
quite  like  an  urbane  adventurer ;  smiling 
with  an  engaging  ambiguity  ;  cocking  at  you 
one  peaked  eyebrow  with  a  great  appearance 
of  finesse ;  speaking  low  and  sweet  and 
thick,  with  a  touch  of  burr ;  telling  strange 
tales  with  singular  deliberation  and,  to  a 
patient   listener,  excellent  effect.      After  all 


A  College  Magazine  6g 

these  ups  and  downs,  he  seemed  still,  like 
the  rich  student  that  he  was  of  yore,  to 
breathe  of  money ;  seemed  still  perfectly 
sure  of  himself  and  certain  of  his  end.  Yet 
he  was  then  upon  the  brink  of  his  last  over- 
throw. He  had  set  himself  to  found  the 
strangest  thing  in  our  society :  one  of  those 
periodical  sheets  from  which  men  suppose 
themselves  to  learn  opinions ;  in  which 
young  gentlemen  from  the  universities  are 
encouraged,  at  so  much  a  line,  to  garble 
facts,  insult  foreign  nations  and  calumniate 
private  individuals  ;  and  which  are  now  the 
source  of  glory,  so  that  if  a  man's  name  be 
often  enough  printed  there,  he  becomes  a 
kind  of  demigod  ;  and  people  will  pardon 
him  when  he  talks  back  and  forth,  as  they 
do  for  Mr.  Gladstone ;  and  crowd  him  to 
suffocation  on  railway  platforms,  as  they  did 
the  other  day  to  General  Boulanger;  and  buy 
his  literary  works,  as  I  hope  you  have  just 
done  for  me.  Our  fathers,  when  they  were 
upon  some  great  enterprise,  would  sacrifice  a 
life  ;    building,  it  may  be,  a  favourite  slave 


70  Memories  and  Portraits 

into  the  foundations  of  their  palace.  It  vvai 
with  his  own  hfe  that  my  companion  dis- 
armed the  envy  of  the  gods.  He  fought  hia 
paper  single-handed  ;  trusting  no  one,  for  he 
was  something  of  a  cynic ;  up  early  and 
down  late,  for  he  was  nothing  of  a  sluggard  ; 
daily  ear-wigging  influential  men,  for  he  was 
a  master  of  ingratiation.  In  that  slender 
and  silken  fellow  there  must  have  been  a 
rare  vein  of  courage,  that  he  should  thus 
have  died  at  his  employment ;  and  doubtless 
ambition  spoke  loudly  in  his  ear,  and  doubt- 
less love  also,  for  it  seems  there  was  a 
marriage  in  his  view  had  he  succeeded.  But 
he  died,  and  his  paper  died  after  him  ;  and 
of  all  this  grace,  and  tact,  and  courage,  it 
must  seem  to  our  blind  eyes  as  if  there  had 
come  literally  nothing. 

These  three  students  sat,  as  I  was  saying, 
in  the  corridor,  under  the  mural  tablet  that 
records  the  virtues  of  Macbean,  the  former 
secretary.  We  would  often  smile  at  that 
ineloquent  memorial,  and  thought  it  a  poor 
thincT  to  come  into  the  world  at  all  and  leave 


A  College  Magazine  71 

no  more  behind  one  than  Macbean.  And 
yet  of  these  three,  two  are  gone  and  have  left 
less  ;  and  this  book,  perhaps,  when  it  is  old 
and  foxy,  and  some  one  picks  it  up  in  a 
corner  of  a  book-shop,  and  glances  through 
it,  smiling  at  the  old,  graceless  turns  of 
speech,  and  perhaps  for  the  love  of  Alma 
Mater  (which  may  be  still  extant  and  flour- 
ishing) buys  it,  not  without  haggling,  for 
some  pence — this  book  may  alone  preserve 
a  memory  of  James  Walter  Ferrier  and 
Robert  Glasgow  Brown. 

Their  thoughts  ran  very  differently  on 
that  December  morning  ;  they  were  all  on 
fire  with  ambition  ;  and  when  they  had 
called  me  in  to  them,  and  made  me  a 
-sharer  in  their  design,  I  too  became  drunken 
with  pride  and  hope.  We  were  to  found  a 
University  magazine.  A  pair  of  little,  active 
brothers — Livingstone  by  name,  great  skip- 
pers on  the  foot,  great  rubbers  of  the  hands, 
who  kept  a  book -shop  over  against  the 
University  building  —  had  been  debauched 
to   play   the    part   of    publishers.      We    four 


72  Memories  and  Portraits 

were  to  be  conjunct  editors  and,  what  was 
the  main  point  of  the  concern,  to  print  our 
own  works  ;  while,  by  every  rule  of  arith- 
metic— that  flatterer  of  credulity — the  ad- 
venture must  succeed  and  bring  great  profit. 
Well,  well :  it  was  a  bright  vision,  I  went 
home  that  morning  walking  upon  air.  To 
have  been  chosen  by  these  three  distin- 
guished students  was  to  me  the  most  un- 
speakable advance  ;  it  was  my  first  draught 
of  consideration  ;  it  reconciled  me  to  myself 
and  to  my  fellow-men  ;  and  as  I  steered 
round  the  railings  at  the  Tron,  I  could  not 
withhold  my  lips  from  smiling  publicly. 
Yet,  in  the  bottom  of  my  heart,  I  knew 
that  magazine  would  be  a  grim  fiasco ;  I 
knew  it  would  not  be  worth  reading ;  I 
knew,  even  if  it  were,  that  nobody  would 
read  it ;  and  I  kept  wondering  how  I  should 
be  able,  upon  my  compact  income  of  twelve 
pounds  per  annum,  payable  monthly,  to  meet 
my  share  in  the  expense.  It  was  a  comfort- 
able thought  to  me  that  I  had  a  father. 
The  magazine  appeared,  in  a  yellow  cover 


A  College  Magazine  73 

which  was  the  best  part  of  it,  for  at  least  it 
was  unassuming  ;  it  ran  four  months  in  un- 
disturbed obscurity,  and  died  without  a  gasp. 
I'he  first  number  was  edited  by  all  four  of 
us  with  prodigious  bustle  ;  the  second  fell 
principally  into  the  hands  of  Ferrier  and  me; 
the  third  I  edited  alone;  and  it  has  long  been 
a  solemn  question  who  it  was  that  edited  the 
fourth.  It  would  perhaps  be  still  more  diffi- 
cult to  say  who  read  it.  Poor  yellow  sheet, 
that  looked  so  hopefully  in  the  Livingstones' 
window !  Poor,  harmless  paper,  that  might 
have  gone  to  print  a  Shakespeare  on,  and 
was  instead  so  clumsily  defaced  with  non- 
sense !  And,  shall  I  say.  Poor  Editors  ? 
I  cannot  pity  myself,  to  whom  it  was  all 
pure  gain.  It  was  no  news  to  me,  but  only 
the  wholesome  confirmation  of  my  judgment, 
when  the  magazine  struggled  into  half-birth, 
and  instantly  sickened  and  subsided  into 
night.  I  had  sent  a  copy  to  the  lady  with 
whom  my  heart  was  at  that  time  somewhat 
engaged,  and  who  did  all  that  in  her  lay  to 
break   it ;    and   she,  with  some  tact,   passed 


74  Memories  and  Portraits 

over  the  gift  and  my  cherished  contributions 
in  silence.  I  will  not  say  that  I  was  pleased 
at  this  ;  but  I  will  tell  her  now,  if  by  any 
chance  she  takes  up  the  work  of  her  former 
servant,  that  I  thought  the  better  of  her 
taste.  I  cleared  the  decks  after  this  lost 
engagement ;  had  the  necessary  interview 
with  my  father,  which  passed  off  not  amiss  ; 
paid  over  my  share  of  the  expense  to  the 
two  little,  active  brothers,  who  rubbed  their 
hands  as  much,  but  methought  skipped 
rather  less  than  formerly,  having  perhaps, 
these  two  also,  embarked  upon  the  enter- 
prise with  some  graceful  illusions  ;  and  then, 
reviewing  the  whole  episode,  I  told  myself 
that  the  time  was  not  yet  ripe,  nor  the  man 
ready  ;  and  to  work  I  went  again  with  my 
penny  version-books,  having  fallen  back  in 
one  day  from  the  printed  author  to  the 
manuscript  student 


A  College  Magazine  75 

III 

From  this  defunct  periodical  1  am  going 
to  reprint  one  of  my  own  papers.  The  poor 
httle  piece  is  all  tail-foremost.  I  have  done 
my  best  to  straighten  its  array,  I  have 
pruned  it  fearlessly,  and  it  remains  inverte- 
brate and  wordy.  No  self-respecting  maga- 
zine would  print  the  thing ;  and  here  you 
behold  it  in  a  bound  volume,  not  for  any 
worth  of  its  own,  but  for  the  sake  of  the 
man  whom  it  purports  dimly  to  represent 
and  some  of  whose  sayings  it  preserves  ;  so 
that  in  this  volume  of  Memories  and  Por- 
traits, Robert  Young,  the  Swanston  gardener, 
may  stand  alongside  of  John  Todd,  the 
Swanston  shepherd.  Not  that  John  and 
Robert  drew  very  close  together  in  their  lives; 
for  John  was  rough,  he  smelt  of  the  windy 
brae  ;  and  Robert  was  gentle,  and  smacked 
of  the  garden  in  the  hollow.  Perhaps  it  is 
to  my  shame  that  I  liked  John  the  better  of 
the  two  ;  he  had  grit  and  dash,  and  that  salt 
of  the  Old  Adam  that  pleases  men  with  any 


76  Memor us  and  Portraits 

savage  inheritance  of  blood  ;  and  he  was  a 
wayfarer  besides,  and  took  my  gipsy  fancy. 
But  however  that  may  be,  and  however 
Robert's  profile  maybe  blurred  in  the  boyish 
sketch  that  follows,  he  was  a  man  of  a  most 
quaint  and  beautiful  nature,  whom,  if  it  were 
possible  to  recast  a  piece  of  work  so  old, 
I  should  like  well  to  draw  again  with  a 
maturer  touch.  And  as  I  think  of  him  and 
of  John,  I  wonder  in  what  other  country  two 
such  men  would  be  found  dwelling  together, 
in  a  hamlet, of  some  twenty  cottages,  in  the 
woody  fold  of  a  green  hill. 


AN   OLD   SCOTCH    GARDENER 

T  THINK  I  might  almost  have  said  the 
last :  somewhere,  indeed,  in  the  utter- 
most glens  of  the  Lammermuir  or  among  the 
south-western  hills  there  may  yet  linger  a 
decrepid  representative  of  this  bygone  good 
fellowship  ;  but  as  far  as  actual  experience 
goes,  I  have  only  met  one  man  in  my  life 
who  might  fitly  be  quoted  in  the  same  breath 
with  Andrew  Fairservice, — though  without 
his  vices.  He  was  a  man  whose  very  pre- 
sence could  impart  a  savour  of  quaint  anti- 
quity to  the  baldest  and  most  modern  flower- 
plots.  There  was  a  dignity  about  his  tall 
stooping  form,  and  an  earnestness  in  his 
wrinkled    face   that   recalled   Don    Quixote ; 


78  Memories  and  Portraits 

but  a  Don  Quixote  who  had  come  through 
the  training  of  the  Covenant,  and  been 
nourished  in  his  youth  on  Walker's  Lives  and 
TJie  Hind  let  Loose. 

Now,  as  I  could  not  bear  to  let  such  a 
man  pass  away  with  no  sketch  preserved  of 
his  old-fashioned  virtues,  I  hope  the  readei 
will  take  this  as  an  excuse  for  the  present 
paper,  and  judge  as  kindly  as  he  can  the 
infirmities  of  my  description.  To  me,  who 
find  it  so  difficult  to  tell  the  little  that  I  know, 
he  stands  essentially  as  a  getiiiis  loci.  It  is 
impossible  to  separate  his  spare  form  and  old 
straw  hat  from  the  garden  in  the  lap  of  the 
hill,  with  its  rocks  overgrown  with  clematis, 
its  shadowy  walks,  and  the  splendid  breadth 
of  champaign  that  one  saw  from  the  north- 
west corner.  The  garden  and  gardener  seem 
part  and  parcel  of  each  other.  When  I  take 
him  from  his  right  surroundings  and  try  to 
make  him  appear  for  me  on  paper,  he  looks  un- 
real and  phantasmal  :  the  best  that  I  can  say 
may  convey  some  notion  to  those  that  never 
saw  him,  but  to  me  it  will  be  ever  impotent. 


An  Old  Scotch  Gardener  79 

The  first  time  that  I  saw  him,  I  fancy 
Robert  was  pretty  old  ah'eady :  he  had  cer- 
tainly begun  to  use  his  years  as  a  stalking 
horse.  Latterly  he  was  beyond  all  the 
impude.ncies  of  logic,  considering  a  reference 
to  the  parish  register  worth  all  the  reasons 
in  the  world.  "  /  am  old  and  zvcll  stricken  in 
years"  he  was  wont  to  say  ;  and  I  never 
found  any  one  bold  enough  to  answer  the 
argument.  Apart  from  this  vantage  that  he 
kept  over  all  who  were  not  yet  octogenarian, 
he  had  some  other  drawbacks  as  a  gardener. 
He  shrank  the  very  place  he  cultivated.  The 
dignity  and  reduced  gentility  of  his  appear- 
ance made  the  small  garden  cut  a  sorry 
figure.  He  was  full  of  tales  of  greater 
situations  in  his  younger  days.  He  spoke  of 
castles  and  parks  with  a  humbling  fam.'li- 
arity.  He  told  of  places  where  under- 
gardeners  had  trembled  at  his  looks,  where 
there  were  meres  and  swanneries,  labyrinths 
of  walk  and  wildernesses  of  sad  shrubbery  in 
his  control,  till  you  could  not  help  feeling 
that  it  was  condescension  on  his  part  to  dress 


So  Memories  and  Portraits 

your  humbler  garden  plots.  You  were  thrown 
at  once  into  an  invidious  position.  You  felt 
that  you  were  profiting  by  the  needs  of 
dignity,  and  that  his  poverty  and  not  his  will 
consented  to  your  vulgar  rule.  Involuntarily 
you  compared  yourself  with  the  swineherd 
that  made  Alfred  watch  his  cakes,  or  some 
bloated  citizen  who  may  have  given  his  sons 
and  his  condescension  to  the  fallen  Dionysius. 
Nor  were  the  disagreeables  purely  fanciful 
and  metaphysical,  for  the  sway  that  he  exer- 
cised over  your  feelings  he  extended  to  your 
garden,  and,  through  the  garden,  to  your 
diet.  He  would  trim  a  hedge,  throw  away  a 
favourite  plant,  or  fill  the  most  favoured  and 
fertile  section  of  the  garden  with  a  vegetable 
that  none  of  us  could  eat,  in  supreme  con- 
tempt for  our  opinion.  If  you  asked  him 
to  send  you  in  one  of  your  own  artichokes, 
"  TJiat  I  wiilty  mem"  he  would  say,  "  with 
pleasure,  for  it  is  mair  blessed  to  give  than  to 
receive"  Ay,  and  even  when,  by  extra 
twisting  of  the  screw,  we  prevailed  on  him 
to    prefer    our    commands    to    his    own    in* 


An  Old  Scotch  Gardener  8i 

clination,  and  he  went  away,  stately  and 
sad,  professing  that  "  our  iviill  was  his  plea- 
sure" but  yet  reminding  us  that  he  would 
do  it  "  witJi  feelins" — even  then,  I  say,  the 
triumphant  master  felt  humbled  in  his 
triumph,  felt  that  he  ruled  on  sufferance 
only,  that  he  was  taking  a  mean  advantage 
of  the  other's  low  estate,  and  that  the  whole 
scene  had  been  one  of  those  "  slights  that 
patient  merit  of  the  unworthy  takes." 

In  flowers  his  taste  was  old-fashioned 
and  catholic ;  affecting  sunflowers  and 
dahlias,  wallflowers  and  roses,  and  hold- 
ing in  supreme  aversion  whatsoever  was  fan- 
tastic, new-fashioned  or  wild.  There  was 
one  exception  to  this  sweeping  ban.  Fox- 
gloves, though  undoubtedly  guilty  on  the 
list  count,  he  not  only  spared,  but  loved  ; 
and  when  the  shrubbery  was  being  thinned, 
he  stayed  his  hand  and  dexterously  manipu- 
lated his  bill  in  order  to  save  every  stately 
stem.  In  boyhood,  as  he  told  me  once, 
speaking  in   that  tone  that   only  actors  and 

the  old-fashioned  common  folk  can  use  now- 
G 


82  Memories  and  PorU'aits 

adays,  his  heart  grew  '' pivtid"  within  him 
when  he  came  on  a  burn-course  among  the 
braes  of  Manor  that  shone  purple  with  their 
graceful  trophies  ;  and  not  all  his  apprentice- 
ship and  practice  for  so  many  years  of  precise 
gardening  had  banished  these  boyish  recol- 
1  actions  from  his  heart.  Indeed,  he  was  a 
man  keenly  alive  to  the  beauty  of  all  that 
was  bygone.  He  abounded  in  old  stories  of 
his  boyhood,  and  kept  pious  account  of  all 
his  former  pleasures  ;  and  when  he  went  (on 
a  holiday)  to  visit  one  of  the  fabled  great 
places  of  the  earth  where  he  had  served 
before,hecame  back  full  of  little  pre-Raphaelite 
reminiscences  that  showed  real  passion  for 
the  past,  such  as  might  have  shaken  hands 
with  Hazlitt  or  Jean-Jacques. 

But  however  his  sympathy  with  his  old 
feelings  might  affect  his  liking  for  the  fox- 
gloves, the  very  truth  was  that  he  scorned 
all  flowers  together.  They  were  but  garnish- 
ings,  childish  toys,  trifling  ornaments  for 
ladies'  chimney-shelves.  It  was  towards  his 
cauliflowers  and   peas  and   cabbage  that  hig 


An  Old  Scotch  Gardener  83 

heart  grew  warm.  His  preference  for  the 
more  useful  growths  was  such  that  cabbages 
were  found  invading  the  flower-plots,  and  an 
outpost  of  savoys  was  once  discovered  in  the 
centre  of  the  lawn.  He  would  prelect  over 
some  thriving  plant  with  wonderful  enthu- 
siasm, piling  reminiscence  on  reminiscence 
of  former  and  perhaps  yet  finer  specimens. 
Yet  even  then  he  did  not  let  the  credit  leave 
himself.  He  had,  indeed,  raised  ^^ finer  d 
the7n ; "  but  it  seemed  that  no  one  else  had 
been  favoured  with  a  like  success.  All  other 
gardeners,  in  fact,  were  mere  foils  to  his  own 
superior  attainments  ;  and  he  would  recount, 
with  perfect  soberness  of  voice  and  visage, 
how  so  and  so  had  wondered,  and  such 
another  could  scarcely  give  credit  to  his 
eyes.  Nor  was  it  with  his  rivals  only  that 
he  parted  praise  and  blame.  If  you  re- 
marked how  well  a  plant  was  looking,  he 
would  gravely  touch  his  hat  and  thank  you 
with  solemn  unction  ;  all  credit  in  the  matter 
falling  to  him.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  you 
called    his    attention    to    some    back  -  going 


84  Memories  and  Portraits 

vegetable,  he  would  quote  Scripture  :  "  Paul 
may  plant  and  Apollos  may  water ; "  all 
blame  being  left  to  Providence,  on  the  score 
of  deficient  rain  or  untimely  frosts. 

There  was  one  thing  in  the  garden  that 
shared  his  preference  with  his  favourite  cab- 
bages and  rhubarb,  and  that  other  was  the 
bee-hive.  Their  sound,  their  industry,  per- 
haps their  sweet  product  also,  had  taken 
hold  of  his  imagination  and  heart,  whether 
by  way  of  memory  or  no  I  cannot  say, 
although  perhaps  the  bees  too  were  linked 
to  him  by  some  recollection  of  Manor  braes 
and  his  country  childhood.  Nevertheless, 
he  was  too  chary  of  his  personal  safety  or 
(let  me  rather  say)  his  personal  dignity  to 
mingle  in  any  active  office  towards  them. 
But  he  could  stand  by  while  one  of  the 
contemned  rivals  did  the  work  for  him,  and 
protest  that  it  was  quite  safe  in  spite  of  his 
own  considerate  distance  and  the  cries  of  the 
distressed  assistant.  In  regard  to  bees,  he 
was  rather  a  man  of  word  than  deed,  and 
some  of  his  most  striking  sentences  had   the 


A71  Old  Scotch  Gardener  85 

bees  for  text.  "  They  are  indeed  wonderfic 
creatures ^  mcml^  he  said  once.  "  TJiey  just 
mind  7ne  d  what  the  Queen  of  Sheba  said  to 
Solomon — and  I  think  she  said  it  wi'  a  sigh 
— *  The  half  of  it  hath  not  been  told  unto  me!  " 
As  far  as  the  Bible  goes,  he  was  deeply- 
read.  Like  the  old  Covenanters,  of  whom 
he  was  the  worthy  representative,  his  mouth 
was  full  of  sacred  quotations ;  it  was  the 
book  that  he  had  studied  most  and  thought 
upon  most  deeply.  To  many  people  in  his 
station  the  Bible,  and  perhaps  Burns,  are  the 
only  books  of  any  vital  literary  merit  that 
they  read,  feeding  themselves,  for  the  rest, 
on  the  draff  of  country  newspapers,  and 
the  very  instructive  but  not  very  palatable 
pabulum  of  some  cheap  educational  series. 
This  was  Robert's  position.  All  day  long 
he  had  dreamed  of  the  Hebrew  stories,  and 
his  head  had  been  full  of  Hebrew  poetry 
and  Gospel  ethics  ;  until  they  had  struck 
deep  root  into  his  heart,  and  the  very  ex- 
pressions had  become  a  part  c  f  him  ;  so  that 
he  rarely  spoke  without  some   antique  idiom 


86  Memories  and  Po7'traits 

or  Scripture  mannerism  that  gave  a  raciness 
to  the  merest  trivialities  of  talk.  But  the 
influence  of  the  Bible  did  not  stop  here 
There  was  more  in  Robert  than  quiaint 
phrase  and  ready  store  of  reference.  He 
was  imbued  with  a  spirit  of  peace  and 
love :  he  interposed  between  man  and 
wife  :  he  threw  himself  between  the  angry, 
touching  his  hat  the  while  with  all  the  cere- 
mony of  an  usher  :  he  protected  the  birds 
from  everybody  but  himself,  seeing,  I  sup- 
pose, a  great  difference  between  official 
execution  and  wanton  sport.  His  mistress 
telling  him  one  day  to  put  some  ferns  into 
his  master's  particular  corner,  and  adding, 
"  Though,  indeed,  Robert,  he  doesn't  deserve 
them, for  he  wouldn't  help  me  to  gather  them," 
"  Eh,  mem"  replies  Robert,  " but  I  woiildnae 
say  that,  for  I  tJdnk  he^s  just  a  most  deservbH 
gentleman^  Again,  two  of  our  friends,  who 
were  on  intimate  terms,  and  accustomed  to 
use  language  to  each  other,  somewhat  without 
the  bounds  of  the  parliamentary,  happened 
to  differ  about  the  position  of  a  seat  in   the 


An  Old  Scotch  Gm'dener  87 

garden.  The  discussion,  as  was  usual  when 
these  ttvo  were  at  it,  soon  waxed  tolerably 
insulting  on  both  sides.  Every  one  accus- 
tomed to  such  controversies  several  times  a 
day  was  quietly  enjoying  this  prize-fight  of 
somewhat  abusive  wit — every  one  but  Robert, 
to  whom  the  perfect  good  faith  of  the  whole 
quarrel  seemed  unquestionable,  and  who,  after 
having  waited  till  his  conscience  would  suffer 
him  to  wait  no  more,  and  till  he  expected 
every  moment  that  the  disputants  would  fall 
to  blows,  cut  suddenly  in  with  tones  of 
almost  tearful  entreaty:  '^  Eh,  but,  gentlemen, 
I  wad  hae  nae  inair  words  about  it!" 
One  thing  was  noticeable  about  Robert's 
religion  :  it  was  neither  dogmatic  nor  sec- 
tarian. He  never  expatiated  (at  least,  in 
my  hearing)  on  the  doctrines  of  his  creed, 
and  he  never  condemned  anybody  else.  I 
have  no  doubt  that  he  held  all  Roman 
Catholics,  Atheists,  and  Mahometans  as  con- 
siderably out  of  it ;  I  don't  believe  he 
had  any  sympathy  for  Prelacy;  and  the 
natural  feelings  of  man  must  have  made  him 


88  Memo7dcs  and  Portraits 

a  little  sore  about  Free-Churchism  ;  but  at 
least,  he  never  talked  about  these  views, 
never  grew  controversially  noisy,  and  never 
openly  aspersed  the  belief  or  practice  of  any- 
body. Now  all  this  is  not  generally  charac- 
teristic of  Scotch  piety;  Scotch  sects  being 
churches  militant  with  a  vengeance,  and 
Scotch  believers  perpetual  crusaders  the  one 
against  the  other,  and  missionaries  the  one 
to  the  other.  Perhaps  Robert's  originally 
tender  heart  was  what  made  the  difference ; 
or,  perhaps,  his  solitary  and  pleasant  labour 
among  fruits  and  flowers  had  taught  him  a 
more  sunshiny  creed  than  those  whose  work 
is  among  the  tares  of  fallen  humanity ;  and 
the  soft  influences  of  the  garden  had  entered 
deep  into  his  spirit, 

"Annihilating  all  that's  made 
To  a  green  thought  in  a  green  shade." 

But  I  could  go  on  for  ever  chronicling  his 
golden  sayings  or  telling  of  his  innocent  and 
living  piety.  I  had  meant  to  tell  of  his  cot- 
tage, with  the  German   pipe  hung  reverently 


An  Old  Scotch  Gardener  89 

above  the  fire,  and  the  shell  box  that  he  had 
made  for  his  son,  and  of  which  he  would 
say  pathetically  :  "  He  was  real  pleased  zvt  it 
at  first,  but  I  think  he's  got  a  kind  d  tired 
d  it  iiozv" — the  son  being  then  a  man  of 
about  forty.  But  I  will  let  all  these  pass. 
"  'Tis  more  significant :  he's  dead."  The 
earth,  that  he  had  digged  so  much  in  his 
life,  was  dug  out  by  another  for  himself; 
and  the  flowers  that  he  had  tended  drew  their 
life  still  from  him,  but  in  a  new  and  nearer 
way.  A  bird  flew  about  the  open  grave,  as 
if  it  too  wished  to  honour  the  obsequies  of  one 
who  had  so  often  quoted  Scripture  in  favour 
of  its  kind:  "Are  not  two  sparrows  sold  for 
one  farthing,  and  yet  not  one  of  them  falleth 
to  the  ground." 

Yes,  he  is  dead.  But  the  kings  did  not 
rise  in  the  place  of  death  to  greet  him  "  with 
taunting  proverbs"  as  they  rose  to  greet  the 
haughty  Babylonian  ;  for  in  his  life  he  was 
lowly,  and  a  peacemaker  and  a  servant  of 
God. 


PASTORAL 

''yO  leave  home  in  early  life  is  to  be 
stunned  and  quickened  with  novelties  ; 
but  when  years  have  come,  it  only  casts  a 
more  endearing  light  upon  the  past.  As  in 
those  composite  photographs  of  Mr.  Galton's, 
the  image  of  each  new  sitter  brings  out  but 
the  more  clearly  the  central  features  of  the 
race  ;  when  once  youth  has  flown,  each  new 
impression  only  deepens  the  sense  of  na- 
tionality and  the  desire  of  native  places.  So 
may  some  cadet  of  Royal  Ecossais  or  the 
Albany  Regiment,  as  he  mounted  guard 
about  French  citadels,  so  may  some  officer 
marching  his  company  of  the  Scots-Dutch 
among  the  polders,  have  felt  the  soft  rains 


Pastoral  9 1 

of  the  Hebrides  upon  his  brow,  or  started  in 
the  ranks  at  the  remembered  aroma  of  peat- 
smoke.  And  the  rivers  of  home  are  dear 
in  particular  to  all  men.  This  is  as  old  as 
Naaman,  who  was  jealous  for  Abana  and 
Pharpar ;  it  is  confined  to  no  race  nor 
country,  for  I  know  one  of  Scottish  blood 
but  a  child  of  Suffolk,  whose  fancy  still 
h'ngers  about  the  lilied  lowland  waters  of 
that  shire.  But  the  streams  of  Scotland 
are  incomparable  in  themselves — or  I  am 
only  the  more  Scottish  to  suppose  so — and 
their  sound  and  colour  dwell  for  ever  in  the 
memory.  How  often  and  willingly  do  I  not 
look  again  in  fancy  on  Tummel,  or  Manor, 
or  the  talking  Airdle,  or  Dee  swirling  in  its 
Lynn  ;  on  the  bright  burn  of  Kinnaird,  or 
the  golden  burn  that  pours  and  sulks  in  the 
den  behind  Kingussie !  I  think  shame  to 
leave  out  one  of  these  enchantresses,  but 
the  list  would  grow  too  long  if  I  remembered 
all  ;  only  I  may  not  forget  Allan  Water, 
nor  birch-wetting  Rogie,  nor  yet  Almond  ; 
nor,  for  all  its  pollutions,  that  Water  of  Leith 


92  Memories  and  Portraits 

of  the  many  and  well-named  mills — Bell's 
Mills,  and  Canon  Mills,  and  Silver  Mills ; 
nor  Redford  Burn  of  pleasant  memories  ; 
nor  yet,  for  all  its  smallness,  that  nameless 
trickle  that  springs  in  the  green  bosom  of 
Allermuir,  and  is  fed  from  Halkerside  with 
a  perennial  teacupful,  and  threads  the  moss 
under  the  Shearer's  Knowe,  and  makes  one 
pool  there,  overhung  by  a  rock,  where  I 
loved  to  sit  and  make  bad  verses,  and  is 
then  kidnapped  in  its  infancy  by  subter- 
ranean pipes  for  the  service  of  the  sea- 
beholding  city  in  the  plain.  From  many 
points  in  the  moss  you  may  see  at  one 
glance  its  whole  course  and  that  of  all  its 
tributaries  ;  the  geographer  of  this  Lilliput 
may  visit  all  its  corners  without  sitting 
down,  and  not  yet  begin  to  be  breathed  ; 
Shearer's  Knowe  and  Halkerside  are  but 
names  of  adjacent  cantons  on  a  single 
shoulder  of  a  hill,  as  names  are  squandered 
(it  would  seem  to  the  inexpert,  in  superfluity) 
upon  these  upland  shcepwalks  ;  a  bucket 
would  receive  the  whole  discharge  of  the  toy 


Pastoral  93 

river  ;  it  would  take  it  an  appreciable  time 
to  fill  your  morning  bath  ;  for  the  most 
part,  besides,  it  soaks  unseen  throu<:;h  the 
moss  ;  and  yet  for  the  sake  of  auld  lang 
syne,  and  the  figure  of  a  certain  oreiiius  loci, 
I  am  condemned  to  linger  awhile  in  fancy 
by  its  shores  ;  and  if  the  nymph  (who 
cannot  be  above  a  span  in  stature)  will  but 
inspire  my  pen,  I  would  gladly  carry  the 
.reader  along  with  me. 

John  Todd,  when  I  knew  him,  was  already 
"  the  oldest  herd  on  the  Pentlands,"  and  had 
been  all  his  days  faithful  to  that  curlew- 
scattering,  sheep-collecting  life.  He  remem- 
bered the  droving  days,  when  the  drove 
roads,  that  now  lie  green  and  solitary 
through  the  heather,  were  thronged  thorough- 
fares. He  had  himself  often  marched  flocks 
into  England,  sleeping  on  the  hillsides  with 
his  caravan  ;  and  by  his  account  it  was  a 
rough  business  not  without  danger.  The 
drove  roads  lay  apart  from  habitation  ;  the 
drovers  met  in  the  wilderness,  as  to-day  the 
deep-sea   fishers   meet  off  the  banks  in  the 


94  Memories  and  Poi^traits 

solitude  of  the  Atlantic  ;  and  in  the  one  as 
in  the  other  case  rough  habits  and  fist-law 
were  the  rule.  Crimes  were  committed, 
sheep  filched,  and  drovers  robbed  and 
beaten  ;  most  of  which  offences  had  a  moor- 
land burial  and  were  never  heard  of  in  the 
courts  of  justice.  John,  in  those  days,  was 
at  least  once  attacked, — by  two  men  after 
his  watch, — and  at  least  once,  betrayed  by 
his  habitual  anger,  fell  under  the  danger  of 
the  law  and  was  clapped  into  some  rustic 
prison-house,  the  doors  of  which  he  burst 
in  the  night  and  was  no  more  heard  of  in 
that  quarter.  When  I  knew  him,  his  life 
had  fallen  in  quieter  places,  and  he  had  no 
cares  beyond  the  dulness  of  his  dogs  and 
the  inroads  of  pedestrians  from  town.  But 
for  a  man  of  his  propensity  to  wrath  these 
were  enough  ;  he  knew  neither  rest  nor 
peace,  except  by  snatches  ;  in  the  gray  of 
the  summer  morning,  and  already  from  far 
up  the  hill,  he  would  wake  the  "  toun  "  with 
the  sound  of  his  shoutings  ;  and  in  the 
lambing  time,  his  cries  were  not  yet  silenced 


Pastoral  95 

late  at  night.  This  wrathful  voice  of  a 
man  unseen  miglit  be  said  to  haunt  that 
quarter  of  the  Pentlands,  an  audible  bogie  ; 
and  no  doubt  it  added  to  the  fear  in  which 
men  stood  of  John  a  touch  of  something 
legendary.  For  my  own  part,  he  was  at 
first  my  enemy,  and  I,  in  my  character  of  a 
rambling  boy,  his  natural  abhorrence.  It 
was  long  before  I  saw  him  near  at  hand, 
knowing  him  only  by  some  sudden  blast  of 
bellowing  from  far  above,  bidding  me 
"  c'way  oot  amang  the  sheep."  The 
quietest  recesses  of  the  hill  harboured  this 
ogre  ;  I  skulked  in  my  favourite  wilderness 
like  a  Cameronian  of  the  Killing  Time, 
and  John  Todd  was  my  Claverhouse,  and 
his  dogs  my  questing  dragoons.  Little 
by  little  we  dropped  into  civilities  ;  his  hail 
at  sight  of  me  began  to  have  less  of  the 
ring  of  a  war -slogan  ;  soon,  we  never  met 
but  he  produced  his  snuff-box,  which  was 
with  him,  like  the  calumet  with  the  Red 
Indian,  a  part  of  the  heraldry  of  peace ; 
and  at  length,  in    the  ripeness    Df  time,  we 


96  Memories  and  Portraits 

grew  to  be  a  pair  of  friends,  and  when  1 
lived  alone  in  these  parts  in  the  winter,  it 
was  a  settled  thing  for  John  to  "  give  me  a 
cry "  over  the  garden  wall  as  he  set  forth 
upon  his  evening  round,  and  for  n:ie  to  over- 
take and  bear  him  company. 

That  dread  voice  of  his  that  shook  the 
hills  when  he  was  angry,  fell  in  ordinary  talk 
very  pleasantly  upon  the  ear,  with  a  kind  of 
honied,  friendly  whine,  not  far  off  singing, 
that  was  eminently  Scottish.  He  laughed 
not  very  often,  and  when  he  did,  with  a 
sudden,  loud  haw-haw,  hearty  but  somehow 
joyless,  like  an  echo  from  a  rock.  His  face 
was  permanently  set  and  coloured  ;  ruddy 
and  stiff  with  weathering ;  more  like  a 
picture  than  a  face  ;  yet  with  a  certain  strain 
and  a  threat  of  latent  anger  in  the  expres- 
sion, like  that  of  a  man  trained  too  fine  and 
harassed  with  perpetual  vigilance.  He  spoke 
in  the  richest  dialect  of  Scotch  I  ever 
heard  ;  the  words  in  themselves  were  a 
pleasure  and  often  a  surprise  to  me,  so  that 
I  often  came  back   from   one  of  our  patrols 


Pastoral  97 

with  new  acquisitions  ;  and  this  vocabulary 
he  would  handle  like  a  master,  stalking  a 
little  before  me,  "  beard  on  shoulder,"  the 
plaid  hanging  loosely  about  him,  the  yellow 
staff  clapped  under  his  arm,  and  guiding  me 
uphill  by  that  devious,  tactical  ascent  which 
seems  peculiar  to  men  of  his  trade.  I  might 
count  him  with  the  best  talkers  ;  only  that 
talking  Scotch  and  talking  English  seem 
incomparable  acts.  He  touched  on  nothing 
at  least,  but  he  adorned  it  ;  when  he  narrated, 
the  scene  was  before  you  ;  when  he  spoke 
(as  he  did  mostly)  of  his  own  antique  busi- 
ness, the  thing  took  on  a  colour  of  romance 
and  curiosity  that  was  surprising.  The 
clans  of  sheep  with  their  particular  territories 
on  the  hill,  and  how,  in  the  yearly  killings 
and  purchases,  each  must  be  proportionally 
thinned  and  strengthened  ;  the  midnight 
busyness  of  animals,  the  signs  of  the  weather, 
the  cares  of  the  snowy  season,  the  exquisite 
stupidity  of  sheep,  the  exquisite  cunning  of 
dogs  :  all  these  he  could  present  so  humanly, 
and  with  so  much  old  experience  and   living 


98  Memories  and  Portraits 

gusto,  that  weariness  was  excluded.  And  in 
the  midst  he  would  suddenly  straighten  his 
bowed  back,  the  stick  would  fly  abroad  in 
demonstration,  and  the  sharp  thunder  of  his 
voice  roll  out  a  long  itinerary  for  the  dogs, 
so  that  you  saw  at  last  the  use  of  that  great 
wealth  of  names  for  every  knowe  and  howe 
upon  the  hillside  ;  and  the  dogs,  having 
hearkened  with  lowered  tails  and  raised  faces, 
would  run  up  their  flags  again  to  the  mast- 
head and  spread  themselves  upon  the  indi- 
cated circuit.  It  used  to  fill  me  with  wonder 
how  they  could  follow  and  retain  so  long  a 
story.  But  John  denied  these  creatures  all 
intelligence  ;  they  were  the  constant  butt  of 
his  passion  and  contempt  ;  it  was  just  pos- 
sible to  work  with  the  like  of  them,  he  said, 
■ — not  more  than  possible.  And  then  he 
would  expand  upon  the  subject  of  the  really 
good  dogs  that  he  had  known,  and  the  one 
really  good  dog  that  he  had  himself  possessed. 
He  had  been  offered  forty  pounds  for  it  ;  but 
a  good  collie  was  worth  more  than  that, 
more  than  an}thing,  to  a  "  herd  ; "  he  did  the 


Pastoral  99 

herd's  work  for  him.  "  As  for  the  like  of 
them  !"  he  would  cry,  and  scornfully  indicate 
the  scouring  tails  of  his  assistants. 

Once — I  translate  John's  Lallan,  for  I 
cannot  do  it  justice,  being  born  Britannis  in 
montibus,  indeed,  but  alas !  inerudito  sczculo 
— once,  in  the  days  of  his  good  dog,  he  had 
bought  some  sheep  in  Edinburgh,  and  on  the 
way  out,  the  road  being  crowded,  two  were 
lost.  This  was  a  reproach  to  John,  and  a 
slur  upon  the  dog  ;  and  both  were  alive  to 
their  misfortune.  Word  came,  after  some 
days,  that  a  farmer  about  Braid  had  found  a 
pair  of  sheep  ;  and  thither  went  John  and 
the  dog  to  ask  for  restitution.  But  the 
farmer  was  a  hard  man  and  stood  upon  his 
rights.  "  How  were  they  marked  ? "  he 
asked  ;  and  since  John  had  bought  right  and 
left  from  many  sellers  and  had  no  notion  of 
the  marks — "  Very  well,"  said  the  farmer, 
"  ■.hen  it's  only  right  that  I  should  keep 
them/ — "Well,"  said  John,  "  it's  a  fact  that 
I  cannae  tell  the  sheep  ;  but  if  my  dog  can, 
will   ye  let  me  have  them  ? "       The   farmer 


1 00         Memories  and  Portraits 

was  honest  as  well  as  hard,  and  be.' ides  1 
daresay  he  had  little  fear  of  the  ordeal  ;  so 
he  had  all  the  sheep  upon  his  farm  into  one 
large  park,  and  turned  John's  dog  into  their 
midst.  That  hairy  man  of  business  knew 
his  errand  well  ;  he  knew  that  John  and  he 
had  bought  two  sheep  and  (to  their  shame) 
lost  them  about  Boroughmuirhead  ;  he  knew 
besides  (the  Lord  knows  how,  unless  by 
listening)  that  they  were  come  to  Braid  for 
their  recovery  ;  and  without  pause  or  blunder 
singled  out,  first  one  and  then  another,  the 
two  waifs.  It  was  that  afternoon  the  forty 
pounds  were  offered  and  refused.  And  the 
shepherd  and  his  dog — what  do  I  say?  the 
true  shepherd  and  his  man — set  off  together 
by  Fairmilehead  in  jocund  humour,  and 
"  smiled  to  ither  "  all  the  way  home,  with  the 
two  recovered  ones  before  them.  So  far,  so 
good  ;  but  intelligence  may  be  abused.  The 
dog,  as  he  is  by  little  man's  inferior  in  mind, 
is  only  by  little  his  superior  in  virtue  ;  and 
John  had  another  collie  tale  of  quite  a 
different   complexion.     At   the    foot   of  the 


Pastoral  i  o  i 

moss  behind  Kirk  Yetton  (Caer  Ketton,  wise 
men  say)  there  is  a  scrog  of  low  wood  and  a 
pool  with  a  dam  for  washing  sheep.  John 
was  one  day  lying  under  a  bush  in  the  scrog, 
when  he  was  aware  of  a  collie  on  the  far 
hillside  skulking  down  through  the  deepest 
of  the  heather  with  obtrusive  stealth.  He 
knew  the  dog ;  knew  him  for  a  clever,  rising 
practitioner  from  quite  a  distant  farm  ;  one 
whom  perhaps  he  had  coveted  as  he  saw  him 
masterfully  steering  flocks  to  market.  But 
what  did  the  practitioner  so  far  from  home  ? 
and  why  this  guilty  and  secret  manoeuvring 
towards  the  pool  ? — for  it  was  towards  the 
pool  that  he  was  heading.  John  lay  the 
closer  under  his  bush,  and  presently  saw  the 
dog  come  forth  upon  the  margin,  look  all 
about  to  see  if  he  were  anywhere  observed, 
plunge  in  and  repeatedly  wash  himself  over 
head  and  ears,  and  then  (but  now  openly 
and  with  tail  in  air)  strike  homeward  over 
the  hills.  That  same  night  word  was  sent 
his  master,  and  the  rising  practitioner, 
shaken  up  from  where  he  lay,  all   innocence 


SANIA  BAiCiiAKA  COLLEGE  LlBIiAliY 


I  o  2         Memories  and  Portraits 

before  the  fire,  was  had  out  to  a  dykeside 
and  promptly  shot  ;  for  alas  !  he  was  thai 
foulest  of  criminals  under  trust,  a  sheep-eater; 
and  it  was  from  the  maculation  of  sheep's 
blood  that  he  had  come  so  far  to  cleanse 
himself  in  the  pool  behind  Kirk  Yetton. 

A  trade  that  touches  nature,  one  that  lies 
at  the  foundations  of  life,  in  which  we  have 
all  had  ancestors  employed,  so  that  on  a  hint 
of  it  ancestral  memories  revive,  lends  itself  to 
literary  use,  vocal  or  written.  The  fortune 
of  a  tale  lies  not  alone  in  the  skill  of  him 
that  writes,  but  as  much,  perhaps,  in  the  in- 
herited experience  of  him  who  reads ;  and 
when  I  hear  with  a  particular  thrill  of  things 
that  I  have  never  done  or  seen,  it  is  one  of 
that  innumerable  army  of  my  ancestors  re- 
joicing in  past  deeds.  Thus  novels  begin 
to  touch  not  the  fine  dilettanti  but  the  gross 
mass  of  mankind,  when  they  leave  off  to 
speak  of  parlours  and  shades  of  manner 
and  still-born  niceties  of  motive,  and  begin 
to  deal  with  fighting,  sailoring,  adventure, 
death  or  child-birth  ;  and  thus  ancient  out- 


Pastoral  103 

door  crafts  and  occupations,  whether  Mr. 
Hardy  wields  the  shepherd's  crook  or  Count 
Tolstoi  swings  the  scythe,  lift  romance  into 
a  near  neighbourhood  with  epic.  These 
aged  things  have  on  them  the  dew  of  man's 
morning  ;  they  lie  near,  not  so  much  to  us, 
the  semi-artificial  flowerets,  as  to  the  trunk 
and  aboriginal  taproot  of  the  race.  A 
thousand  interests  spring  up  in  the  process 
of  the  ages,  and  a  thousand  perish  ;  that  is 
now  an  eccentricity  or  a  lost  art  which  was 
once  the  fashion  of  an  empire ;  and  those 
only  are  perennial  matters  that  rouse  us  to- 
day, and  that  roused  men  in  all  epochs  of 
the  past.  There  is  a  certain  critic,  not 
indeed  of  execution  but  of  matter,  whom  I 
dare  be  known  to  set  before  the  best:  a  certain 
low-browed,  hairy  gentleman,  at  first  a  percher 
in  the  fork  of  trees,  next  (as  they  relate)  a 
dweller  in  caves,  and  whom  I  think  I  see 
squatting  in  cave-mouths,  of  a  pleasant  after- 
noon, to  munch  his  berries — his  wife,  that 
accomplished  lady,  squatting  by  his  side : 
his    name   I    never   heard,   but   he   is   often 


1 04         Memories  and  Portraits 

described  as  Probably  Arboreal,  which  may 
serve  for  recognition.  Each  has  his  own 
tree  of  ancestors,  but  at  the  top  of  all  sits 
Probably  Arboreal  ;  in  all  our  veins  there 
run  some  minims  of  his  old,  wild,  tree-top 
blood  ;  our  civilised  nerves  still  tingle  with 
his  rude  terrors  and  pleasures  ;  and  to  that 
which  would  have  moved  our  common  an- 
cestor, all  must  obediently  thrill. 

We  have  not  so  far  to  climb  to  come  to 
shepherds  ;  and  it  may  be  I  had  one  for  an 
ascendant  who  has  largely  moulded  me. 
But  yet  I  think  I  owe  my  taste  for  that  hill- 
side business  rather  to  the  art  and  interest 
of  John  Todd.  He  it  was  that  made  it  live 
for  me,  as  the  artist  can  make  all  things  live. 
It  was  through  him  the  simple  strategy 
of  massing  sheep  upon  a  snowy  evening,  with 
its  attendant  scampering  of  earnest,  shaggy 
aides-de-camp,  was  an  affair  that  I  never 
wearied  of  seeing,  and  that  I  never  weary  of 
recalling  to  mind  :  the  shadow  of  the  night 
darkening  on  the  hills,  inscrutable  black  blots 
of  snow  shower  movincr  here  and  there  like 


Pastoral  i  o  5 

night  already  come,  huddles  of  yellow  sheep 
and  dartings  of  black  dogs  upon  the  snow,  a 
bitter  air  that  took  you  by  the  throat,  un- 
earthly harplngs  of  the  wind  along  the 
moors ;  and  for  centre  piece  to  all  these 
features  and  influences,  John  winding  up  the 
brae,  keeping  his  captain's  eye  upon  all 
sides,  and  breaking,  ever  and  again,  into  a 
spasm  of  bellowing  that  seemed  to  make  the 
evening  bleaker.  It  is  thus  that  I  still  see 
him  in  my  mind's  eye,  perched  on  a  hump  of 
the  declivity  not  far  from  Halkerside,  his 
staff  in  airy  flourish,  his  great  voice  taking 
hold  upon  the  hills  and  echoing  terror  to  the 
lowlands  ;  I,  meanwhile,  standing  somewhat 
back,  until  the  fit  should  be  over,  and,  with  a 
pinch  of  snuff,  my  friend  relapse  into  his 
easy  even  conversation. 


VII 

THE    MANSE 

T  HAVE  named,  among  many  rivers  that 
make  music  in  my  memory,  that  dirty 
Water  of  Leith.  Often  and  often  I  desire 
to  look  upon  it  again  ;  and  the  choice  of  a 
point  of  view  is  easy  to  me.  It  should  be 
at  a  certain  water-door,  embowered  in  shrub- 
bery. The  river  is  there  dammed  back  for 
the  service  of  the  flour-mill  just  below,  so 
that  it  lies  deep  and  darkling,  and  the  sand 
slopes  into  brown  obscurity  with  a  glint  of 
gold ;  and  it  has  but  newly  been  recruited 
by  the  borrowings  of  the  snuff-mill  just 
above,  and  these,  tumbling  merrily  in,  shake 
the  pool  to  its  black  heart,  fill  it  with  drowsy 
eddies,  and    set    the   curded    froth  of  many 


The  Manse  107 

other  mills  solemnly  steering  to  and  fro 
upon  the  surface.  Or  so  it  was  when  I  was 
young  ;  for  change,  and  the  masons,  and  the 
pruning-knife,  have  been  busy ;  and  if  I 
could  hope  to  repeat  a  cherished  experience, 
it  must  be  on  many  and  impossible  condi- 
tions. I  must  choose,  as  well  as  the  point 
of  view,  a  certain  moment  in  my  growth, 
so  that  the  scale  may  be  exaggerated,  and 
the  trees  on  the  steep  opposite  side  may 
seem  to  climb  to  heaven,  and  the  sand  by 
the  water-door,  where  I  am  standing,  seem 
as  low  as  Styx.  And  I  must  choose  the 
season  also,  so  that  the  valley  may  be 
brimmed  like  a  cup  with  sunshine  and  the 
songs  of  birds  ; — and  the  year  of  grace,  so 
that  when  I  turn  to  leave  the  riverside  I  may 
find  the  old  manse  and  its  inhabitants 
unchanged. 

It  was  a  place  in  that  time  like  no  other : 
the  garden  cut  into  provinces  by  a  great 
hedge  of  beech,  and  overlooked  by  the 
church  and  the  terrace  of  the  churchyard, 
where  the  tombstones  were  thick,  and  after 


io8         Memories  and  Portraits 

nightfall  "spunkies"  might  be  seen  to  dance, 
at  least  by  children  ;  flower-plots  lying  warm 
in  sunshine  ;  laurels  and  the  great  yew  mak- 
ing elsewhere  a  pleasing  horror  of  shade  ; 
the  smell  of  water  rising  from  all  round,  with 
an  added  tang  of  paper-mills  ;  the  sound  of 
water  everywhere,  and  the  sound  of  mills — 
the  wheel  and  the  dam  singing  their  alternate 
strain  ;  the  birds  on  every  bush  and  from 
every  corner  of  the  overhanging  woods  peal- 
ing out  their  notes  until  the  air  throbbed 
with  them  ;  and  in  the  midst  of  this,  the 
manse.  I  see  it,  by  the  standard  of  my 
childish  stature,  as  a  great  and  roomy  house. 
In  truth,  it  was  not  so  large  as  I  supposed, 
nor  yet  so  convenient,  and,  standing  where  it 
did,  it  is  difficult  to  suppose  that  it  was 
healthful.  Yet  a  large  family  of  stalwart 
sons  and  tall  daughters  was  housed  and 
reared,  and  came  to  man  and  womanhood  in 
that  nest  of  little  chambers  ;  so  that  the  face 
of  the  earth  was  peppered  with  the  children 
of  the  manse,  and  letters  with  outlandish 
stamps  became  familiar  to  the  local  postman, 


TJie  Manse  109 

and  the  walls  of  the  little  chambers  bright- 
ened with  the  wonders  of  the  East.  The 
dullest  could  see  this  was  a  house  that  had  a 
pair  of  hands  in  divers  foreign  places :  a 
well-beloved  house — its  image  fondly  dwelt 
on  by  many  travellers. 

Here  lived  an  ancestor  of  mine,  who 
was  a  herd  of  men.  I  read  him,  judging 
with  older  criticism  the  report  of  childish 
observation,  as  a  man  of  singular  simplicity 
of  nature  ;  unemotional,  and  hating  the  dis- 
play of  what  he  felt ;  standing  contented  on 
the  old  ways  ;  a  lover  of  his  life  and  innocent 
habits  to  the  end.  We  children  admired 
him  :  partly  for  his  beautiful  face  and  silver 
hair,  for  none  more  than  children  are  con- 
cerned for  beauty  and,  above  all,  for  beauty 
in  the  old  ;  partly  for  the  solemn  light  in 
which  we  beheld  him  once  a  week,  the 
observed  of  all  observers,  in  the  pulpit.  But 
his  strictness  and  distance,  the  effect,  I  now 
fancy,  of  old  age,  slow  blood,  and  settled 
habit,  oppressed  us  with  a  kind  of  terror. 
When  not  abroad,  he  sat  much  alone,  writing 


1 1  o         Memories  and  Portraits 

sermons  or  letters  to  his  scattered  family  in 
a  dark  and  cold  room  with  a  library  ot 
bloodless  books — or  so  they  seemed  in  those 
days,  although  I  have  some  of  them  now  on 
my  own  shelves  and  like  well  enough  to 
read  them  ;  and  these  lonely  hours  wrapped 
him  in  the  greater  gloom  for  our  imagina- 
tions. But  the  study  had  a  redeeming  grace 
in  many  Indian  pictures,  gaudily  coloured 
and  dear  to  young  eyes.  I  cannot  depict 
(for  I  have  no  such  passions  now)  the  greed 
with  which  I  beheld  them  ;  and  when  I  was 
once  sent  in  to  say  a  psalm  to  my  grand- 
father, I  went,  quaking  indeed  with  fear,  but 
at  the  same  time  glowing  with  hope  that,  if 
I  said  it  well,  he  might  reward  me  with  an 
Indian  picture. 

"  Thy  foot  He'll  not  let  slide,  nor  will 
He  slumber  that  thee  keeps," 

it  ran :  a  strange  conglomerate  of  the  un- 
pronounceable, a  sad  model  to  set  in  child- 
hood before  one  who  was  himself  to  be  a 
versifier,  and  a  task  in  recitation  that  really 
merited   reward.      And   I   must  suppose  the 


The  Manse  1 1 1 

old  man  thought  so  too,  and  was  eithei 
touched  or  amused  by  the  performance  ;  for 
he  took  me  in  his  arms  with  most  unwonted 
tenderness,  and  kissed  me,  and  gave  me  a 
little  kindly  sermon  for  my  psalm  ;  so  that, 
for  that  day,  we  were  clerk  and  parson.  I 
was  struck  by  this  reception  into  so  tender  a 
surprise  that  I  forgot  my  disappointment. 
And  indeed  the  hope  was  one  of  those  that 
childhood  forges  for  a  pastime,  and  with  no 
design  upon  reality.  Nothing  was  more 
unlikely  than  that  my  grandfather  should 
strip  himself  of  one  of  those  pictures,  love- 
gifts  and  reminders  of  his  absent  sons  ; 
nothing  more  unlikely  than  that  he  should 
bestow  it  upon  me.  He  had  no  idea  of 
spoiling  children,  leaving  all  that  to  my 
aunt  ;  he  had  fared  hard  himself,  and  blub- 
bered under  the  rod  in  the  last  century  ; 
and  his  ways  were  still  Spartan  for  the 
yoiihg.  The  last  word  I  heard  upon  his 
lips  was  in  this  Spartan  key.  He  had  over- 
walked  in  the  teeth  of  an  east  wind,  and  was 
now  near  the  end  of  his  many  days.      He 


r  1 2         Memories  and  Portraits 

sat  by  the  dining-room  fire,  with  his  white 
hair,  pale  face  and  bloodshot  eyes,  a  some- 
what awful  figure  ;  and  my  aunt  had  given 
him  a  dose  of  our  good  old  Scotch  medicine, 
Dr.  Gregory's  powder.  Now  that  remedy, 
as  the  work  of  a  near  kinsman  of  Rob  Roy 
himself,  may  have  a  savour  of  romance  for 
the  imagination  ;  but  it  comes  uncouthly  to 
the  palate.  The  old  gentleman  had  taken 
it  with  a  wry  face  ;  and  that  being  accom- 
plished, sat  with  perfect  simplicity,  like  a 
child's,  munching  a  "  barley-sugar  kiss."  But 
when  my  aunt,  having  the  canister  open  in 
her  hands,  proposed  to  let  me  share  in  the 
sweets,  he  interfered  at  once.  I  had  had  no 
Gregory ;  then  I  should  have  no  barley- 
sugar  kiss  :  so  he  decided  with  a  touch  of 
irritation.  And  just  then  the  phaeton  coming 
opportunely  to  the  kitchen  door — for  such 
was  our  unlordly  fashion — I  was  taken  for 
the  last  time  from  the  presence  of  my  grand- 
father. 

Now  I  often  wonder  what  I  have  inherited 
from    this    old    minister.      I    must    suppose, 


The  Manse  1 1 3 

indeed,  that  he  was  fond  of  preaching 
sermons,  and  so  am  I,  though  I  never  heard 
it  maintained  that  either  of  us  loved  to  hear 
them.  He  sought  health  in  his  youth  in  the 
Isle  of  Wight,  and  I  have  sought  it  in  both 
hemispheres  ;  but  whereas  he  found  and 
kept  it,  I  am  still  on  the  quest.  He  was  a 
great  lover  of  Shakespeare,  whom  he  read 
aloud,  I  have  been  told,  with  taste ;  well,  I 
love  my  Shakespeare  also,  and  am  persuaded 
I  can  read  him  well,  though  I  own  I  nevei 
have  been  told  so.  He  made  embroidery, 
designing  his  own  patterns  ;  and  in  that  kind 
of  work  I  never  made  anything  but  a  kettle- 
holder  in  Berlin  wool,  and  an  odd  garter  of 
knitting,  which  was  as  black  as  the  chimney 
before  I  had  done  with  it.  He  loved  port, 
and  nuts,  and  porter  ;  and  so  do  I,  but  they 
agreed  better  with  my  grandfather,  which 
seems  to  me  a  breach  of  contract.  He  had 
chalk-stones  in  his  fingers  ;  and  these,  in 
good  time,  I  may  possibly  inherit,  but  I 
would  much  rather  have  inherited  his  noble 

presence.      Try    as    I    please,   I    cannot  join 
I 


1 1 4         Memories  and  Portraits 

myself  on  with  the  reverend  doctor  ;  and  all 
the  while,  no  doubt,  and  even  as  I  write  the 
phrase,  he  moves  in  my  blood,  and  whispers 
words  to  me,  and  sits  efficient  in  the  very 
knot  and  centre  of  my  being.  In  his  garden, 
as  I  played  there,  I  learned  the  love  of  mills 
— or  had  I  an  ancestor  a  miller  ? — and  a 
kindness  for  the  neighbourhood  of  graves,  as 
homely  things  not  without  their  poetry — or 
had  I  an  ancestor  a  sexton  ?  But  what  of 
the  garden  where  he  played  himself? — for 
that,  too,  was  a  scene  of  my  education.  Some 
part  of  me  played  there  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  ran  races  under  the  green 
avenue  at  Pilrig  ;  some  part  of  me  trudged 
up  Leith  Walk,  which  was  still  a  country 
place,  and  sat  on  the  High  School  benches, 
and  was  thrashed,  perhaps,  by  Dr.  Adam. 
The  house  where  I  spent  my  youth  was  not 
yet  thought  upon  ;  but  we  made  holiday 
parties  among  the  cornfields  on  its  site,  and 
ate  strawberries  and  cream  near  by  at  a 
gardener's.  All  this  I  had  forgotten  ;  only 
my   grandfather    remembered    and    once   re- 


The  Manse  1 1 5 

minded  me.  I  have  forgotten,  too,  how  we 
grew  up,  and  took  orders,  and  went  to  our 
first  Ayrshire  parish,  and  fell  in  love  with 
and  married  a  daughter  of  Burns's  Dr.  Smith 
— "  Smith  opens  out  his  cauld  harangues." 
I  have  forgotten,  but  I  was  there  all  the 
same,  and  heard  stories  of  Burns  at  first 
hand. 

And  there  is  a  thing  stranger  than  all 
that ;  for  this  homuncuhis  or  part-man  of 
mine  that  walked  about  the  eighteenth  century 
with  Dr.  Balfour  in  his  youth,  was  in  the  way 
of  meeting  other  hoimincidos  or  part-men,  in 
the  persons  of  my  other  ancestors.  These 
were  of  a  lower  order,  and  doubtless  we 
looked  down  upon  them  duly.  But  as  I 
went  to  college  with  Dr.  Balfour,  I  may  have 
seen  the  lamp  and  oil  man  taking  down  the 
shutters  from  his  shop  beside  the  Tron  ; — we 
may  have  had  a  rabbit-hutch  or  a  bookshelf 
made  for  us  by  a  certain  carpenter  in  I  know 
not  what  wynd  of  the  old,  smoky  city;  or, 
upon  some  holiday  excursion,  we  may  have 
looked   into  the  windows  of  a   cottage  in  a 


1 1 6         Memories  and  Portraits 

flower-garden  and  seen  a  certain  weaver  ply- 
ing his  shuttle.  And  these  were  all  kinsmen 
of  mine  upon  the  other  side  ;  and  from  the 
eyes  of  the  lamp  and  oil  man  one-half  of  my 
unborn  father,  and  one-quarter  of  myself, 
looked  out  upon  us  as  we  went  by  to  college. 
Nothing  of  all  this  would  cross  the  mind  of 
the  young  student,  as  he  posted  up  the 
Bridges  with  trim,  stockinged  legs,  in  that 
city  of  cocked  hats  and  good  Scotch  still  un- 
adulterated. It  would  not  cross  his  mind 
that  he  should  have  a  daughter ;  and  the 
lamp  and  oil  man,  just  then  beginning,  by  a 
not  unnatural  metastasis,  to  bloom  into  a 
lighthouse-engineer,  should  have  a  grandson  ; 
and  that  these  two,  in  the  fulness  of  time, 
should  wed  ;  and  some  portion  of  that 
student  himself  should  survive  yet  a  year  or 
two  longer  in  the  person  of  their  child. 

But  our  ancestral  adventures  are  beyond 
even  the  arithmetic  of  fancy;  and  it  is  the 
chief  recommendation  of  long  pedigrees,  that 
we  can  follow  backward  the  careers  of  our 
hoviwiculos  and  be  reminded  of  our  antenatal 


The  Manse  1 1 7 

lives.  Our  conscious  years  are  but  a  moment 
in  the  history  of  the  elements  that  build  us. 
Are  you  a  bank-clerk,  and  do  you  live  at 
Peckham  ?  It  was  not  always  so.  And 
though  to-day  I  am  only  a  man  of  letters, 
either  tradition  errs  or  I  was  present  when 
there  landed  at  St.  Andrews  a  French 
barber-surgeon,  to  tend  the  health  and  the 
beard  of  the  great  Cardinal  Beaton  ;  I  have 
shaken  a  spear  in  the  Debateable  Land  and 
shouted  the  slogan  of  the  Elliots ;  I  was 
present  when  a  skipper,  plying  from  Dundee, 
smuggled  Jacobites  to  France  after  the  '15  ; 
I  was  in  a  West  India  merchant's  office,  per- 
haps next  door  to  Bailie  Nichol  Jarvie's,  and 
managed  the  business  of  a  plantation  in  St. 
Kitt's ;  I  was  with  my  engineer-grandfather 
(the  son-in-law  of  the  lamp  and  oil  man) 
when  he  sailed  north  about  Scotland  on  the 
famous  cruise  that  gave  us  the  Pirate  and 
the  Lard  of  the  Isles;  I  was  with  him, 
too,  on  the  Bell  Rock,  in  the  fog,  when  the 
Sineaton  had  drifted  from  her  moorings,  and 
the  Aberdeen  men,  pick  in  hand,  had  seized 


1 1 8         Memories  and  Portraits 

upon  the  only  boats,  and  he  must  stoop  and 
lap  sea-water  before  his  tongue  could  utter 
audible  words  ;  and  once  more  with  him 
when  the  Bell  Rock  beacon  took  a  "  thrawe," 
and  his  workmen  fled  into  the  tower,  then 
nearly  finished,  and  he  sat  unmoved  reading 
in  his  Bible — or  affecting  to  read — till  one 
after  another  slunk  back  with  confusion  of 
countenance  to  their  engineer.  Yes,  parts  of 
me  have  seen  life,  and  met  adventures,  and 
sometimes  met  them  well.  And  away  in  the 
still  cloudier  past,  the  threads  that  make  me 
up  can  be  traced  by  fancy  into  the  bosoms 
of  thousands  and  millions  of  ascendants : 
Picts  who  rallied  round  Macbeth  and  the  old 
(and  highly  preferable)  system  of  descent  by 
females,  fleers  from  before  the  legions  of 
Agricola,  marchers  in  Pannonian  morasses, 
star-gazers  on  Chaldsean  plateaus  ;  and, 
furthest  of  all,  what  face  is  this  that  fancy 
can  see  peering  through  the  disparted 
branches  ?  What  sleeper  in  green  tree-tops, 
what  muncher  of  nuts,  concludes  my  pedi- 
gree ?      Probably  arboreal  in  his  habits.   .  .  . 


The  Manse  1 1 9 

And  I  know  not  which  is  the  more  strange, 
that  I  should  carry  about  with  me  some  fibres 
of  my  minister-grandfather ;  or  that  in  him, 
as  he  sat  in  his  cool  study,  grave,  reverend, 
contented  gentleman,  there  was  an  aboriginal 
frisking  of  the  blood  that  was  not  his  ;  tree- 
top  memories,  like  undeveloped  negatives, 
lay  dormant  in  his  mind  ;  tree-top  instincts 
awoke  and  were  trod  down ;  and  Probably 
Arboreal  (scarce  to  be  distinguished  from  a 
monkey)  gambolled  and  chattered  in  the 
brain  of  the  old  divine. 


VIII 

MEMOIRS   OF   AN    ISLET 

T^HOSE  who  try  to  be  artists  use,  time 
after  time,  the  matter  of  their  recol- 
lections, setting  and  resetting  little  coloured 
memories  of  men  and  scenes,  rigging  up  (it 
may  be)  some  especial  friend  in  the  attire 
of  a  buccaneer,  and  decreeing  armies  to 
manoeuvre,  or  murder  to  be  done,  on  the 
playground  of  their  youth.  But  the  memo- 
ries are  a  fairy  gift  which  cannot  be  worn 
out  in  using.  After  a  dozen  services  in 
various  tales,  the  little  sunbright  pictures  oi 
the  past  still  shine  in  the  mind's  eye  with 
not  a  lineament  defaced,  not  a  tint  impaired. 
Gliick  und  ungliick  ivird  gesang^  if  Goethe 
pleases ;    yet   only    by    endless  avatars,   the 


Memoirs  of  an  Islet  121 

original  re-embodying  after  each.  So  that 
a  writer,  in  time,  begins  to  wonder  at  the 
perdurable  life  of  these  impressions  ;  begins, 
perhaps,  to  fancy  that  he  wrongs  them  when 
he  weaves  them  in  with  fiction  ;  and  looking 
back  on  them  with  ever-growing  kindness, 
puts  them  at  last,  substantive  jewels,  in  a 
setting  of  their  own. 

One  or  two  of  these  pleasant  spectres  I 
think  I  have  laid.  I  used  one  but  the  other 
day :  a  little  eyot  of  dense,  freshwater  sand, 
where  I  once  waded  deep  in  butterburrs, 
delighting  to  hear  the  song  of  the  river  on 
both  sides,  and  to  tell  myself  that  I  was 
indeed  and  at  last  upon  an  island.  Two 
of  my  puppets  lay  there  a  summer's  day, 
hearkening  to  the  shearers  at  work  in  river- 
side fields  and  to  the  drums  of  the  gray  old 
garrison  upon  the  neighbouring  hill.  And 
this  was,  I  think,  done  rightly :  the  place 
was  rightly  peopled — and  now  belongs  not  to 
me  but  to  my  puppets — for  a  time  at  least 
In  time,  perhaps,  the  puppets  will  grow 
taint  ;  the  original  memory  swim  up  instant 


122         Memories  and  Portraits 

as  ever  ;  and  I  shall  once  more  lie  in  bed^ 
and  see  the  little  sandy  isle  in  Allan  Water 
as  it  is  in  nature,  and  the  child  (that  once 
was  me)  wading  there  in  butterburrs  ;  and 
wonder  at  the  instancy  and  virgin  freshness 
of  that  memory  ;  and  be  pricked  again,  in 
season  and  out  of  season,  by  the  desire  to 
weave  it  into  art. 

There  is  another  isle  in  my  collection,  the 
memory  of  which  besieges  me.  I  put  a 
whole  family  there,  in  one  of  my  tales ;  and 
later  on,  threw  upon  its  shores,  and  condemned 
to  several  days  of  rain  and  shellfish  on  its 
tumbled  boulders,  the  hero  of  another.  The 
ink  is  not  yet  faded  ;  the  sound  of  the  sen- 
tences is  still  in  my  mind's  ear  ;  and  I  am 
under  a  spell  to  write  of  that  island  again. 

I 

The  little  isle  of  Earraid  lies  close  in  to 
the  south-west  corner  of  the  Ross  of  Mull : 
the  sound  of  lona  on  one  side,  across  which 
you  may  see  the  isle  and  church  of  CoJumba; 


Memoirs  of  an  Islet  1 2  3 

the  open  sea  to  the  other,  where  you  shall 
be  able  to  mark,  on  a  clear,  surfy  day,  the 
breakers  running  white  on  many  sunken 
rocks.  I  first  saw  it,  or  first  remember  see- 
ing it,  framed  in  the  round  bull's-eye  of  a 
cabin  port,  the  sea  lying  smooth  along  its 
shores  like  the  waters  of  a  lake,  the  colour- 
less, clear  light  of  the  early  morning  making 
plain  its  heathery  and  rocky  hummocks. 
There  stood  upon  it,  in  these  days,  a  single 
rude  house  of  uncemented  stones,  approached 
by  a  pier  of  wreckwood.  It  must  have  been 
very  early,  for  it  was  then  summer,  and 
in  summer,  in  that  latitude,  day  scarcely  with- 
draws ;  but  even  at  that  hour  the  house  was 
making  a  sweet  smoke  of  peats  which  came 
to  me  over  the  bay,  and  the  bare-legged 
daughters  of  the  cotter  were  wading  by  the 
pier.  The  same  day  we  visited  the  shores 
of  the  isle  in  the  ship's  boats  ;  rowed  deep 
into  Fiddler's  Hole,  sounding  as  we  went , 
and  having  taken  stock  of  all  possible  ac- 
commodation, pitched  on  the  northern  inlet 
as  the  scene  of  operations.      For  it  was  no 


1 24         Meiuories  and  Po7'traits 

accident  that  had  brought  the  Hghthouse 
steamer  to  anchor  in  the  Bay  of  Earraid, 
Fifteen  miles  away  to  seaward,  a  certain 
black  rock  stood  environed  by  the  Atlantic 
rollers,  the  outpost  of  the  Torran  reefs.  Here 
was  a  tower  to  be  built,  and  a  star  lighted, 
for  the  conduct  of  seamen.  But  as  the  rock 
was  small,  and  hard  of  access,  and  far  from 
land,  the  work  would  be  one  of  years  ;  and 
my  father  was  now  looking  for  a  shore 
station,  where  the  stones  might  be  quarried 
and  dressed,  the  men  live,  and  the  tender, 
with  some  degree  of  safety,  lie  at  anchor. 

I  saw  Earraid  next  from  the  stern  thwart 
of  an  lona  lugger,  Sam  Bough  and  I  sitting 
there  cheek  by  jowl,  with  our  feet  upon  our 
baggage,  in  a  beautiful,  clear,  northern  sum- 
mer eve.  And  behold  !  there  was  now  a 
pier  of  stone,  there  were  rows  of  sheds,  rail- 
ways, travelling-cranes,  a  street  of  cottages, 
an  iron  house  for  the  resident  engineer, 
wooden  bothies  for  the  men,  a  stage  where 
the  courses  of  the  tower  were  put  together 
experimentally,  and   behind  the  settlement  a 


Memoirs  of  an  Islet  1 2  5 

great  gash  in  the  hillside  where  granite 
was  quarried.  In  the  ba}^,  the  steamer  lay 
at  her  moorings.  All  day  long  there  hung 
about  the  place  the  music  of  chinking  tools  ; 
and  even  in  the  dead  of  night,  the  watchman 
carried  his  lantern  to  and  fro  in  the  dark 
settlement,  and  could  light  the  pipe  of  any 
midnight  muser.  It  was,  above  all,  strange 
to  see  Earraid  on  the  Sunday,  when  the 
sound  of  the  tools  ceased  and  there  fell  a 
crystal  quiet.  All  about  the  green  compound 
men  would  be  sauntering  in  their  Sunday's 
best,  walking  with  those  lax  joints  of  the 
reposing  toiler,  thoughtfully  smoking,  talking 
small,  as  if  in  honour  of  the  stillness,  or 
hearkening  to  the  wailing  of  the  gulls.  And 
it  was  strange  to  see  our  Sabbath  services, 
held,  as  they  were,  in  one  of  the  bothies, 
with  Mr.  Brebner  reading  at  a  table,  and  the 
congregation  perched  about  in  the  double 
tier  of  sleeping  bunks  ;  and  to  hear  the 
singing  of  the  psalms,  "  the  chapters,"  the 
inevitable  Spurgeon's  sermon,  and  the  old, 
eloquent  lighthouse  prayer. 


1 26         Memoi'ies  and  Portraits 

In  fine  weather,  when  by  the  spy-glass  on 
the  hill  the  sea  was  observed  to  run  low 
upon  the  reef,  there  would  be  a  sound  of 
preparation  in  the  very  early  morning  ;  and 
before  the  sun  had  risen  from  behind  Ben 
More,  the  tender  would  steam  out  of  the  bay. 
Over  fifteen  sea -miles  of  the  great  blue 
Atlantic  rollers  she  ploughed  her  way,  trail- 
ing at  her  tail  a  brace  of  wallowing  stone- 
lighters.  The  open  ocean  widened  upon 
either  board,  and  the  hills  of  the  mainland 
began  to  go  down  on  the  horizon,  before  she 
came  to  her  unhomely  destination,  and  lay-to 
at  last  where  the  rock  clapped  its  black  head 
above  the  swell,  with  the  tall  iron  barrack  on 
its  spider  legs, and  the  truncated  tower,  and  the 
cranes  waving  their  arms,  and  the  smoke  of 
the  engine-fire  rising  in  the  mid-sea.  An  ugly 
reef  is  this  of  the  Dhu  Keartach  ;  no  pleasant 
assembl£.ge  of  shelves,  and  pools,  and  creeks, 
about  which  a  child  might  play  for  a  whole 
summer  without  weariness,  like  the  Bell 
Rock  or  the  Skerryvore,  but  one  oval 
nodule    of    bL-.ck-trap,    sparsely    bedabbled 


Memoirs  of  an  Islet  1 2  7 

with  an  inconspicuous  fucus,  and  alive  in 
every  crevice  with  a  dingy  insect  between  a 
slater  and  a  bug.  No  other  life  was  there 
but  that  of  sea-birds,  and  of  the  sea  itself, 
that  here  ran  like  a  mill-race,  and  growled 
about  the  outer  reef  for  ever,  and  ever  and 
again,  in  the  calmest  weather,  roared  and 
spouted  on  the  rock  itself  Times  were 
different  upon  Dhu  Heartach  when  it  blew, 
and  the  night  fell  dark,  and  the  neigh- 
bour lights  of  Skerryvore  and  Rhu-val  were 
quenched  in  fog,  and  the  men  sat  prisoned 
high  up  in  their  iron  drum,  that  then  re- 
sounded with  the  lashing  of  the  sprays.  Fear 
sat  with  them  in  their  sea-beleaguered  dwell- 
ing ;  and  the  colour  changed  in  anxious 
faces  when  some  greater  billow  struck  the 
barrack,  and  its  pillars  quivered  and  sprang 
under  the  blow.  It  was  then  that  the  fore- 
man builder,  Mr.  Goodwillie,  whom  I  see 
before  mc  still  in  his  rock-habit  of  undecipher- 
able rags,  would  get  his  fiddle  down  and 
strike  up  human  minstrelsy  amid  the  music 
of  the  storm.      But  it  was  in  sunshine  only 


1 2  S         Memories  and  Portraits 

that  I  saw  Dhu-Heartach;  and  it  was  in  sun- 
shine, or  the  yet  loveher  summer  afterglow, 
that  the  steamer  would  return  to  Earraid, 
ploughing  an  enchanted  sea  ;  the  obedient 
lighters,  relieved  of  their  deck  cargo,  riding 
in  her  wake  more  quietly;  and  the  steersman 
upon  each,  as  she  rose  on  the  long  swell, 
standing  tall  and  dark  against  the  shining 
west. 

II 

But  it  was  in  Earraid  itself  that  I  delighted 
chiefly.  The  lighthouse  settlement  scarce 
encroached  beyond  its  fences  ;  over  the  top 
of  the  first  brae  the  ground  was  all  virgin, 
the  world  all  shut  out,  the  face  of  things  un- 
changed by  any  of  man's  doings.  Here  was 
no  living  presence,  save  for  the  limpets  on 
the  rocks,  for  some  old,  gray,  rain-beaten 
ram  that  I  might  rouse  out  of  a  ferny  den 
betwixt  two  boulders,  or  for  the  haunting 
and  the  piping  of  the  gulls.  It  was  older 
than  man  ;  it  was  found  so  by  incoming 
Celts,  and  seafaring  Norsemen,  and  Columba's 


Memoirs  of  an  Islet  129 

priests.  The  earthy  savour  of  the  bog  plants^ 
the  rude  disorder  of  the  be  aiders,  the  inimit- 
able seaside  brightness  of  the  air,  the  brine 
and  the  iodine,  the  lap  of  the  billows  among 
the  weedy  reefs,  the  sudden  springing  up  of 
a  great  run  of  dashing  surf  along  the  sea- 
front  of  the  isle,  all  that  I  saw  and  felt  my 
predecessors  must  have  seen  and  felt  with 
scarce  a  difference.  I  steeped  myself  in 
open  air  and  in  past  ages. 

*'  Delightful  would  it  be  to  me  to  be  in  Uchd  Ailiun 

On  the  pinnacle  of  a  rock, 
That  I  might  ofien  see 

The  face  of  the  ocean  ; 
That  I  might  hear  the  song  of  the  wonderful  birds, 

Source  of  happiness  ; 
That  I  might  hear  the  thunder  of  the  crowding  waves 

Upon  the  rocks  : 
At  times  at  work  without  compulsion — 

This  would  be  delightful ; 
At  times  plucking  dulse  from  the  rocks ; 

At  times  at  fishing." 

So,    about    the    next    island    of    lona,    sang 

Columba  himself  twelve  hundred  years  before. 

And  so  might  I  have  sung  of  Earraid. 

And  all  the  while   I   was  aware  that   thi.s 
K 


130         Memories  and  Portraits 

life  of  sea-bathing  and  sun-burning  was  for  me 
but  a  holiday.  In  that  year  cannon  were  roar- 
ing for  days  together  on  French  battlefields; 
and  I  would  sit  in  my  isle  (I  call  it  mine, 
after  the  use  of  lovers)  and  think  upon  the 
war,  and  the  loudness  of  these  far-away 
battles,  and  the  pain  of  the  men's  wounds, 
and  the  weariness  of  their  marching.  And  I 
would  think  too  of  that  other  war  which  is 
as  old  as  mankind,  and  is  indeed  the  life 
of  man :  the  unsparing  war,  the  grind- 
ing slaveiy  of  competition  ;  the  toil  of 
seventy  years,  dear-bought  bread,  precarious 
honour,  the  perils  and  pitfalls,  and  the  poor 
rewards.  It  was  a  long  look  forward  ;  the 
future  summoned  me  as  with  trumpet  calls, 
it  warned  me  back  as  with  a  voice  of  weeping 
and  beseeching;  and  I  thrilled  and  trembled 
on  the  brink  of  life,  like  a  childish  bather 
on  the  beach. 

There  was  another  young  man  on  Earraid 
in  these  days,  and  we  were  much  together, 
bathing,  clambering  on  the  boulders,  trying  to 
sail  a  boat  and  spinning  round  instead  in  the 


Memoirs  of  an  Islet  131 

oily  whirlpools  of  the  roost.  But  the  most  part 
of  the  time  we  spoke  of  the  great  uncharted 
desert  of  our  futures ;  wondering  together 
what  should  there  befall  us  ;  hearing  with 
surprise  the  sound  of  our  own  voices  in  the 
empty  vestibule  of  youth.  As  far,  and  as 
hard,  as  it  seemed  then  to  look  forward  to 
the  grave,  so  far  it  seems  now  to  look  back- 
ward upon  these  emotions;  so  hard  to  recall 
justly  that  loath  submission,  as  of  the  sacrificial 
bull,  with  which  we  stooped  our  necks  under 
the  yoke  of  destiny.  I  met  my  old  companion 
but  the  other  day  ;  I  cannot  tell  of  course 
what  he  was  thinking  ;  but,  upon  my  part,  I 
was  wondering  to  see  us  both  so  much  at 
home,  and  so  composed  and  sedentary  in  the 
world  ;  and  how  much  we  had  gained,  and 
how  much  we  had  lost,  to  attain  to  that 
composure  ;  and  which  had  been  upon  the 
whole  our  best  estate :  when  we  sat  there 
prating  sensibly  like  men  of  some  experience, 
or  when  we  shared  our  timorous  and  hopeful 
counsels  in  a  western  islet. 


THOMAS  STEVENSON 

CIVIL    ENGINEER 

'T^HE  death  of  Thomas  Stevenson  will 
mean  not  very  much  to  the  general 
reader.  His  service  to  mankind  took  on 
forms  of  which  the  public  knows  little  and 
understands  less.  He  came  seldom  to 
London,  and  then  only  as  a  task,  remaining 
always  a  stranger  and  a  convinced  pro- 
vincial ;  putting  up  for  years  at  the  same 
hotel  where  his  father  had  gone  before  him  ; 
faithful  for  long  to  the  same  restaurant,  the 
same  church,  and  the  same  theatre,  chosen 
simply  for  propinquity  ;  steadfastly  refusing 
to  dine  out.  He  had  a  circle  of  his  own, 
indeed,   at   home  ;    few   men   were  more  be- 


Thomas  Stevenson  133 

loved  in  Edinburgh,  where  he  breathed  an 
air  that  pleased  him  ;  and  wherever  he  went, 
in  railway  carriages  or  hotel  smoking-rooms, 
his  strange,  humorous  vein  of  talk,  and  his 
transparent  honesty,  raised  him  up  friends 
and  admirers.  But  to  the  general  public 
and  the  world  of  London,  except  about  the 
parliamentary  committee-rooms,  he  remained 
unknown.  All  the  time,  his  lights  were  in 
every  part  of  the  world,  guiding  the  mariner  ; 
his  firm  were  consulting  engineers  to  the 
Indian,  the  New  Zealand,  and  the  Japanese 
Lighthouse  Boards,  so  that  Edinburgh  was 
a  world  centre  for  that  branch  of  applied 
science ;  in  Germany,  he  had  been  called 
"  the  Nestor  of  lighthouse  illumination  ; " 
even  in  France,  where  his  claims  were  long 
denied,  he  was  at  last,  on  the  occasion  of  the 
late  Exposition,  recognised  and  medalled. 
And  to  show  by  one  instance  the  inverted 
nature  of  his  reputation,  comparatively  small 
at  home,  yet  filling  the  world,  a  friend  of 
mine  was  this  winter  on  a  visit  to  the 
Spanish  main,  and  was  asked  by  a  Peruvian 


1 34         Memories  and  Portraits 

if  he  "  knew  Mr.  Stevenson  the  author,  be- 
cause his  works  were  much  esteemed  in 
Peru?"  My  friend  supposed  the  reference 
was  to  the  writer  of  tales  ;  but  the  Peruvian 
had  never  heard  of  Dr.  Jckyll ;  what  he 
had  in  his  eye,  what  was  esteemed  in  Peru, 
were  the  vohimes  of  the  engineer. 

Thomas  Stevenson  was  born  at  Edinburgh 
in  the  year  1 8  i  8,  the  grandson  of  Thomas 
Smith,  first  engineer  to  the  Board  of  Northern 
Lights,  son  of  Robert  Stevenson,  brother  of 
Alan  and  David  ;  so  that  his  nephew,  David 
Alan  Stevenson,  joined  with  him  at  the  time 
of  his  death  in  the  engineership,  is  the  sixth 
of  the  family  who  has  held,  successively  or 
conjointly,  that  office.  The  Bell  Rock,  his 
father's  great  triumph,  was  finished  before  he 
was  born  ;  but  he  served  under  his  brother 
Alan  in  the  building  of  Skerryvore,  the 
noblest  of  all  extant  deep-sea  lights  ;  and, 
in  conjunction  with  his  brother  David,  he 
added  two — the  Chickens  and  Dhu  Heartach 
— to  that  small  number  of  man's  extreme 
outposts  in  the  ocean.      Of  shore  lights,  the 


Thomas  Stevenson  135 

two  brothers  last  named  erected  no  fewer 
than  twenty-seven ;  of  beacons/  about  twenty- 
five.  Many  harbours  w^ere  successfully  carried 
out :  one,  the  harbour  of  Wick,  the  chief 
disaster  of  my  father's  life,  was  a  failure  ; 
the  sea  proved  too  strong  for  man's  arts  ; 
and  after  expedients  hitherto  unthought  of, 
and  on  a  scale  hyper-cyclopean,  the  work 
must  be  deserted,  and  now  stands  a  ruin 
in  that  bleak,  God-forsaken  bay,  ten  miles 
from  John-o'-Groat's.  In  the  improvement 
of  rivers  the  brothers  were  likewise  in  a 
large  way  of  practice  over  both  England  and 
Scotland,  nor  had  any  British  engineer  any- 
thing approaching  their  experience. 

It  was  about  this  nucleus  of  his  pro- 
fessional labours  that  all  my  father's  scientific 
inquiries  and  inventions  centred  ;  these  pro- 
ceeded from,  and  acted  back  upon,  his  daily 
business.  Thus  it  was  as  a  harbour  engineer 
that  he  became  interested  in  the  propagation 

'  In  Dr.  Murray's  admiralile  new  dictionary,  I  have 
remarked  a  flaw  stib  voce  Beacon.  In  its  express,  technical 
sense,  a  beacon  may  Ix-  defined  as  "a  founded,  artificial 
sea-mark,  not  lighted." 


136         Memories  and  Portraits 

and  reduction  of  waves  ;  a  difficult  subject 
in  regard  to  which  he  has  left  behind  him 
much  suggestive  matter  and  some  valuable 
approximate  results.  Storms  were  his  sworn 
adversaries,  and  it  was  through  the  study  of 
storms  that  he  approached  that  of  meteor- 
ology at  large.  Many  who  knew  him  not 
otherwise,  knew  —  perhaps  have  in  their 
gardens  —  his  louvre  -  boarded  screen  for 
instruments.  But  the  great  achievement  of 
his  life  was,  of  course,  in  optics  as  applied  to 
lighthouse  illumination.  Fresnel  had  done 
much ;  Fresnel  had  settled  the  fixed  light 
apparatus  on  a  principle  that  still  seems 
unimprovable  ;  and  when  Thomas  Stevenson 
stepped  in  and  brought  to  a  comparable 
perfection  the  revolving  light,  a  not  un- 
natural jealousy  and  much  painful  con- 
troversy rose  in  France.  It  had  its  hour ; 
and,  as  I  have  told  already,  even  in  France 
it  has  blown  by.  Had  it  not,  it  would  have 
mattered  the  less,  since  all  through  his  life 
my  father  continued  to  justify  his  claim  by 
fresh  advances.      New  apparatus  for'  lights  in 


Thomas  Stevenson  137 

new  situations  was  continually  being  designed 
with  the  same  unwearied  search  after  per- 
fection, the  same  nice  ingenuity  of  means ; 
and  though  the  holophotal  revolving  light 
perhaps  still  remains  his  most  elegant  con- 
trivance, it  is  difficult  to  give  it  the  palm 
over  the  much  later  condensing  system, 
with  its  thousand  possible  modifications.  The 
number  and  the  value  of  these  improvements 
entitle  their  author  to  the  name  of  one  of 
mankind's  benefactors.  In  all  parts  of  the 
world  a  safer  landfall  awaits  the  marinci. 
Two  things  must  be  said  :  and,  first,  that 
Thomas  Stevenson  was  no  mathematician. 
Natural  shrewdness,  a  sentiment  of  optical 
laws,  and  a  great  intensity  of  consideration 
led  him  to  just  conclusions  ;  but  to  calculate 
the  necessary  formulae  for  the  instruments  he 
had  conceived  was  often  beyond  him,  and  he 
must  fall  back  on  the  help  of  others,  notably 
on  that  of  his  cousin  and  lifelong  intimate 
friend,  emerihis  Professor  Swan,  of  St. 
Andrews,  and  his  later  friend.  Professor  P. 
G.    Tait.      It   is   a   curious   enough    circum* 


I  5  8         Memories  and  Portraits 

stance,  and  a  great  encouragement  to  otherSj 
that  a  man  so  ill  equipped  should  have 
succeeded  in  one  of  the  most  abstract  and 
arduous  walks  of  applied  science.  The 
second  remark  is  one  that  applies  to  the 
whole  family,  and  only  particularly  to  Thomas 
Stevenson  from  the  great  number  and  im- 
portance of  his  inventions :  holding  as  the 
Stevensons  did  a  Government  appointment, 
they  regarded  their  original  work  as  some- 
thing due  already  to  the  nation,  and  none  of 
them  has  ever  taken  out  a  patent.  It  is 
another  cause  of  the  comparative  obscurity 
of  the  name  :  for  a  patent  not  only  brings  in 
mone}^,  it  infallibly  spreads  reputation  ;  and 
my  father's  instruments  enter  anonymously 
into  a  hundred  light-rooms,  and  are  passed 
anonymously  over  in  a  hundred  reports, 
where  the  least  considerable  patent  would 
stand  out  and  tell  its  author's  story. 

But  the  life-work  of  Thomas  Stevenson 
remains  ;  what  we  have  lost,  what  we  now 
rather  try  to  recall,  is  the  friend  and  com- 
panion.     He    was    a    man    of    a    somewhat 


Thomas  Stevenson  139 

antique  strain  :  with  a  blended  sternness  and 
softness  that  was  wholly  Scottish  and  at  first 
somewhat  bewildering  ;  with  a  profound 
essential  melancholy  of  disposition  and  (what 
often  accompanies  it)  the  most  humorous 
geniality  in  company  ;  shrewd  and  childish  ; 
passionately  attached,  passionately  preju- 
diced ;  a  man  of  many  extremes,  many 
faults  of  temper,  and  no  very  stable  foothold 
for  himself  among  life's  troubles.  Yet  he 
was  a  wise  adviser  ;  many  men,  and  these 
not  inconsiderable,  took  counsel  with  him 
habitually.  "  I  sat  at  his  feet,"  writes  one 
of  these,  "  when  I  asked  his  advice,  and  when 
the  broad  brow  was  set  in  thought  and  the 
firm  mouth  said  his  say,  I  always  knew  that 
no  man  could  add  to  the  worth  of  the  con- 
clusion." He  had  excellent  taste,  though 
whimsical  and  partial  ;  collected  old  furni- 
ture and  delighted  specially  in  sunflowers 
long  before  the  days  of  Mr.  Wilde  ;  took  a 
lasting  pleasure  in  prints  and  pictures  ;  was 
a  devout  admirer  of  Thomson  of  Dudding- 
ston  at  a  time  when  few  shared  the  taste  ; 


1 40         Memories  and  Portraits 

and  though  he  read  little,  was  constant  tr 
his  favourite  books.  He  had  never  any 
Greek  ;  Latin  he  happily  re-taught  himself 
after  he  had  left  school,  where  he  was  a  mere 
consistent  idler :  happily,  I  say,  for  Lactan- 
tius,  Vossius,  and  Cardinal  Bona  were  his 
chief  authors.  The  first  he  must  have  read 
for  twenty  years  uninterruptedly,  keeping  it 
near  him  in  his  study,  and  carrying  it  in  his 
bag  on  journeys.  Another  old  theologian, 
Brown  of  Wamphray,  was  often  in  his 
hands.  When  he  was  indisposed,  he  had 
two  books,  Guy  Mannermg  and  The 
Parent's  Assistant,  of  which  he  never 
wearied.  He  was  a  strong  Conservative,  or, 
as  he  preferred  to  call  himself,  a  Tory  ;  ex- 
cept in  so  far  as  his  views  were  modified  by 
a  hot-headed  chivalrous  sentiment  for  women. 
He  was  actually  in  favour  of  a  marriage  law 
under  which  any  woman  might  have  a 
divorce  for  the  asking,  and  no  man  on  any 
ground  whatever ;  and  the  same  sentiment 
found  another  expression  in  a  Magdalen 
Mission   in   Edinburgh,  founded   and   largely 


Thomas  Stevenson  141 

supported  by  himself.  This  was  but  one  of 
the  many  channels  of  his  public  generosity  ; 
his  private  was  equally  unstrained.  The 
Church  of  Scotland,  of  which  he  held  the 
doctrines  (though  in  a  sense  of  his  own)  and 
to  which  he  bore  a  clansman's  loyalty,  profited 
often  by  his  time  and  money  ;  and  though, 
from  a  morbid  sense  of  his  own  unworthi- 
ness,  he  would  never  consent  to  be  an  office- 
bearer, his  advice  was  often  sought,  and  he 
served  the  Church  on  many  committees. 
What  he  perhaps  valued  highest  in  his  work 
were  his  contributions  to  the  defence  of 
Christianity  ;  one  of  which,  in  particular,  was 
praised  by  Hutchinson  Stirling  and  reprinted 
at  the  request  of  Professor  Crawford. 

His  sense  of  his  own  unworthiness  I  have 
called  morbid  ;  morbid,  too,  were  his  sense 
of  the  fleetingness  of  life  and  his  concern 
for  death.  He  had  never  accepted  the  con- 
ditions of  man's  life  or  his  own  character  ; 
and  his  inmost  thoughts  were  ever  tinged 
with  the  Celtic  melancholy.  Cases  of  con- 
science were  sometimes  grievous  to  him,  and 


142         Memories  and  Portraits 

that  delicate  employment  of  a  scientific  wit- 
ness cost  him  many  qualms.  But  he  found 
respite  from  these  troublesome  humours  in 
his  work,  in  his  lifelong  study  of  natural 
science,  in  the  society  of  those  he  loved,  and 
in  his  daily  walks,  which  now  would  carry 
him  far  into  the  country  with  some  congenial 
friend,  and  now  keep  him  dangling  about 
the  town  from  one  old  book-shop  to  another, 
and  scraping  romantic  acquaintance  with 
every  dog  that  passed.  His  talk,  com- 
pounded of  so  much  sterling  sense  and  so 
much  freakish  humour,  and  clothed  in  lan- 
guage so  apt,  droll,  and  emphatic,  was  a  per- 
petual delight  to  all  who  knew  him  before 
the  clouds  began  to  settle  on  his  mind.  His 
use  of  language  was  both  just  and  pictur- 
esque ;  and  when  at  the  beginning  of  his  ill- 
ness he  began  to  feel  the  ebbing  of  this  power, 
it  was  strange  and  painful  to  hear  him  reject 
one  word  after  another  as  inadequate,  and 
at  length  desist  from  the  search  and  leave 
his  phrase  unfinished  rather  than  finish  it 
without  propriety.      It  was  perhaps  another 


Thomas  Stevenson  143 

Celtic  trait  that  his  affections  and  emotions, 
passionate  as  these  were,  and  Hablc  to  pas- 
sionate ups  and  downs,  found  the  most  elo- 
quent expression  both  in  words  and  gestures. 
Love,  anger,  and  indignation  shone  through 
him  and  broke  forth  in  imagery,  like  what 
we  read  of  Southern  races.  For  all  these 
emotional  extremes,  and  in  spite  of  the 
melancholy  ground  of  his  character,  he  had 
upon  the  whole  a  happy  life ;  nor  was  he 
less  fortunate  in  his  death,  which  at  the  last 
came  to  him  unaware. 


X 

TALK  AND  TALKERS 

Sir,  we  had  a  good  talk.— Johnson. 

As  we  must  account  for  every  idle  word,  so  we  must  for 
every  idle  silence. — Franklin. 

I 

nPHERE  can  be  no  fairer  ambition  than  to 
excel  in  talk  ;  to  be  affable,  gay,  ready, 
clear  and  welcome  ;  to  have  a  fact,  a  thought, 
or  an  illustration,  pat  to  every  subject ;  and 
not  only  to  cheer  the  flight  of  time  among 
our  intimates,  but  bear  our  part  in  that  great 
international  congress,  always  sitting,  where 
public  wrongs  are  first  declared,  public  erorrs 
first  corrected,  and  the  course  of  public 
opinion  shaped,  day  by  day,  a  little  nearer 
to   the    right.     No    measure    comes    before 


Talk  and  Talkers  145 

Parliament  but  it  has  been  long  ago  prepared 
by  the  grand  jury  of  the  talkers  ;  no 
book  is  written  that  has  not  been  largely 
composed  by  their  assistance.  Literature  in 
many  of  its  branches  is  no  other  than  the 
shadow  of  good  talk  ;  but  the  imitation  falls 
far  short  of  the  original  in  life,  freedom  and 
effect.  There  are  always  two  to  a  talk, 
giving  and  taking,  comparing  experience  and 
according  conclusions.  Talk  is  fluid,  tenta- 
tive, continually  "  in  further  search  and 
progress  ;"  while  written  words  remain  fixed, 
become  idols  even  to  the  writer,  found 
wooden  dogmatisms,  and  preserve  flies  of 
obvious  error  in  the  amber  of  the  truth. 
Last  and  chief,  while  literature,  gagged  witli 
linsey-woolsey,  can  only  deal  with  a  fraction 
of  the  life  of  man,  talk  goes  fancy  free  and 
may  call  a  spade  a  spade.  Talk  has  none 
of  the  freezing  immunities  of  the  pulpit.  It 
cannot,  even  if  it  would,  become  merely 
aesthetic  or  merely  classical  like  literature. 
A  jest  intervenes,  the  solemn  humbug  is  dis- 
solved   in    laughter,  and    speech    runs    forth 


146         Memories  and  Portraits 

out  of  the  contemporary  groove  into  the 
open  fields  of  nature,  cheery  and  cheering,  Hke 
schoolboys  out  of  school.  And  it  is  in  talk 
alone  that  we  can  learn  our  period  and  our- 
selves. In  short,  the  first  duty  of  a  man  is 
to  speak  ;  that  is  his  chief  business  in  this 
world  ;  and  talk,  which  is  the  harmonious 
speech  of  two  or  more,  is  by  far  the  most 
accessible  of  pleasures.  It  costs  nothing  in 
money;  it  is  all  profit;  it  completes  our 
education,  founds  and  fosters  our  friendships, 
and  can  be  enjoyed  at  any  age  and  in  almost 
any  state  of  health. 

The  spice  of  life  is  battle  ;  the  friendliest 
relations  are  still  a  kind  of  contest;  and  if  we 
would  not  forego  all  that  is  valuable  in  our  lot, 
A^e  must  continually  face  some  other  person, 
3ye  to  eye,  and  wrestle  a  fall  whether  in  love 
or  enmity.  It  is  still  by  force  of  body,  or 
power  of  character  or  intellect,  that  we  attain 
to  worthy  pleasures.  Men  and  women  con- 
tend for  each  other  in  the  lists  of  love,  like 
rival  mesmerists  ;  the  active  and  adroit  decide 
their  challenges  in   the  spoits  of  the  body  ; 


Talk  and  Talkers  147 

and  the  sedentary  sit  down  to  chess  or  con- 
versation. All  sluggish  and  pacific  pleasures 
are,  to  the  same  degree,  solitary  and  selfish  ; 
and  every  durable  bond  between  human 
beings  is  founded  in  or  heightened  by  some 
element  of  competition.  Now,  the  relation 
that  has  the  least  root  in  matter  is  un- 
doubtedly that  airy  one  of  friendship  ;  and 
hence,  I  suppose,  it  is  that  good  talk  most 
commonly  arises  among  friends.  Talk  is, 
indeed,  both  the  scene  and  instrument  of 
friendship.  It  is  in  talk  alone  that  the 
friends  can  measure  strength,  and  enjoy  that 
amicable  counter- assertion  of  personality 
which  is  the  gauge  of  relations  and  the  sport 
of  life. 

A  good  talk  is  not  to  be  had  for  the  ask- 
ing. Humours  must  first  be  accorded  in  a 
kind  of  overture  or  prologue  ;  hour,  company 
and  circumstance  be  suited  ;  and  then,  at  a 
fit  juncture,  the  subject,  the  quarry  of  two 
heated  minds,  spring  up  like  a  deer  out  of 
the  wood.  Not  that  the  talker  has  any  of 
'the   hunter's   pride,    though  he  has  all   and 


148         Memories  and  Portraits 

more  than  all  his  ardour.  The  genuine 
artist  follows  the  stream  of  conveisation  as 
an  angler  follows  the  windings  of  a  brook. 
not  dallying  where  he  fails  to  "  kill."  He 
trusts  implicitly  to  hazard  ;  and  he  is 
rewarded  by  continual  variety,  continual 
pleasure,  and  those  changing  prospects  of 
the  truth  that  are  the  best  of  education. 
There  is  nothing  in  a  subject,  so  called, 
that  we  should  regard  it  as  an  idol,  or 
follow  it  beyond  the  promptings  of  desire. 
Indeed,  there  are  i&v^  subjects;  and  so  far 
as  they  are  truly  talkable,  more  than  the 
half  of  them  may  be  reduced  to  three : 
that  I  am  I,  that  you  are  you,  and  that 
there  are  other  people  dimly  understood 
to  be  not  quite  the  same  as  either.  Where- 
ever  talk  may  range,  it  still  runs  half  the 
time  on  these  eternal  lines.  The  theme 
being  set,  each  plays  on  himself  as  on  an  in- 
strument ;  asserts  and  justifies  himself;  ran- 
sacks his  brain  for  instances  and  opinions, 
and  brings  them  forth  new-minted,  to  his  own 
surprise  and  the  admiration  of  his  adversary. 


Talk  and  Talkers  i  a  9 

All  natural  talk  is  a  festival  of  ostentation  ; 
and  by  the  laws  of  the  game  each  accepts 
and  fans  the  vanity  of  the  other.  It  is  from 
that  reason  that  we  venture  to  lay  ourselves  so 
open,  that  we  dare  to  be  so  warmly  eloquent, 
and  that  we  swell  in  each  other's  eyes  to 
such  a  vast  proportion.  For  talkers,  once 
launched,  begin  to  overflow  the  limits  of 
their  ordinary  selves,  tower  up  to  the  height 
of  their  secret  pretensions,  and  give  themselves 
out  for  the  heroes,  brave,  pious,  musical  and 
wise,  that  in  their  most  shining  moments  they 
aspire  to  be.  So  they  weave  for  themselves 
with  words  and  for  a  while  inhabit  a  palace 
of  delights,  temple  at  once  and  theatre,  where 
they  fill  the  round  of  the  world's  dignities, 
and  feast  with  the  gods,  exulting  in  Kudos. 
And  when  the  talk  is  over,  each  goes  his 
way,  still  flushed  with  vanity  and  admiration, 
still  trailing  clouds  of  glory  ;  each  declines 
from  the  height  of  his  ideal  orgie,  not  in  a 
moment,  but  by  slow  declension.  I  remem- 
ber, in  the  entrade  of  an  afternoon  perform- 
ance,  coming   forth    into   the   sunshine,  in  a 


I  so         Memories  and  Portraits 

beautiful  green,  gardened  corner  of  a  romantic 
city  ;  and  as  I  sat  and  smoked,  the  music 
moving  in  my  blood,  I  seemed  to  sit  there 
and  evaporate  The  Flying  DutcJimait  (for  it 
was  that  I  had  been  hearing)  with  a  wonder- 
ful sense  of  life,  warmth,  well-being  and 
pride ;  and  the  noises  of  the  city,  voices, 
bells  and  marching  feet,  fell  together  in  my 
ears  like  a  symphonious  orchestra.  In  the 
same  way,  the  excitement  of  a  good  talk 
lives  for  a  long  while  after  in  the  blood,  the 
heart  still  hot  within  you,  the  brain  still 
simmering,  and  the  physical  earth  swimming 
around  you  with  the  colours  of  the  sunset. 

Natural  talk,  like  ploughing,  should  turn 
up  a  large  surface  of  life,  rather  than  dig 
mines  into  geological  strata.  Masses  cl 
experience,  anecdote,  incident,  cross-lights, 
quotation,  historical  instances,  the  whole 
flotsam  and  jetsam  of  two  minds  forced  in 
and  in  upon  the  matter  in  hand  from  every 
point  of  the  compass,  and  from  every  degree 
of  mental  elevation  and  abasement — these 
are  the  material  with  which   talk   is  fortified, 


Talk  and  Talkers  1 5 1 

the  food  on  which  the  talkers  thrive.  Such 
argument  as  is  proper  to  the  exercise  should 
still  be  brief  and  seizing.  Talk  should  pro- 
ceed by  instances  ;  by  the  apposite,  not  the 
expository.  It  should  keep  close  along  the 
lines  of  humanity,  near  the  bosoms  and 
businesses  of  men,  at  the  level  where  history, 
fiction  and  experience  intersect  and  illuminate 
each  other.  I  am  I,  and  You  are  You, 
with  all  my  heart ;  but  conceive  how 
these  lean  propositions  change  and  brighten 
when,  instead  of  words,  the  actual  you 
and  I  sit  cheek  by  jowl,  the  spirit  housed 
in  the  live  body,  and  the  very  clothes  utter- 
ing voices  to  corroborate  the  story  in  the 
face.  Not  less  surprising  is  the  change  when 
we  leave  off  to  speak  of  generalities — the 
bad,  the  good,  the  miser,  and  all  the 
characters  of  Theophrastus  —  and  call  up 
other  men,  by  anecdote  or  instance,  in  their 
very  trick  and  feature  ;  or  trading  on  a 
common  knowledge,  toss  each  other  famous 
names,  still  glowing  with  the  hues  of  life. 
Communication   is  no  longer  by  words,  but 


152         Memories  and  Portraits 

by  the  instancing  of  whole  biographies,  epics, 
systems  of  philosophy,  and  epochs  of  history, 
in  bulk.  That  which  is  understood  excels 
that  which  is  spoken  in  quantity  and  quality 
alike  ;  ideas  thus  figured  and  personified 
change  hands,  as  we  may  say,  like  coin  ;  and 
the  speakers  imply  without  effort  the  most 
obscure  and  intricate  thoughts.  Strangers 
who  have  a  large  common  ground  of  reading 
will,  for  this  reason,  come  the  sooner  to  the 
grapple  of  genuine  converse.  If  they  know 
Othello  and  Napoleon,  Consuelo  and  Clarissa 
Harlowe,  Vautrin  and  Steenie  Steenson,  they 
can  leave  generalities  and  begin  at  once  to 
speak  by  figures. 

Conduct  and  art  are  the  two  subjects  that 
arise  most  frequently  and  that  embrace  the 
widest  range  of  facts.  A  few  pleasures  beai 
discussion  for  their  own  sake,  but  only  those 
which  are  most  social  or  most  radically 
buman  ;  and  even  these  can  only  be  di« 
cussed  among  their  devotees.  A  technicality 
is  always  welcome  to  the  expert,  whether  in 
athletics,  art  or  law  ;   I  have  heard   the  best 


Talk  and  Talkers  1 5  3 

kind  of  talk  on  technicalities  from  such  rare 
and  happy  persons  as  both  know  and  love 
their  business.  No  human  being  ever  spoke 
of  scenery  for  above  two  minutes  at  a  time, 
which  makes  me  suspect  we  hear  too  much 
of  it  in  literature.  The  weather  is  regarded 
as  the  very  nadir  and  scoff  of  conversational 
topics.  And  yet  the  weather,  the  dramatic 
element  in  scenery,  is  far  more  tractable  in 
language,  and  far  more  human  both  in  im- 
port and  suggestion  than  the  stable  features 
of  the  landscape.  Sailors  and  shepherds, 
and  the  people  generally  of  coast  and 
mountain,  talk  well  of  it;  and  it  is  often  excit- 
ingly presented  in  literature.  But  the  ten- 
dency of  all  living  talk  draws  it  back  and 
back  into  the  common  focus  of  humanity. 
Talk  is  a  creature  of  the  street  and  market- 
place, feeding  on  gossip  ;  and  its  last  resort 
is  still  in  a  discussion  on  morals.  That  is 
the  heroic  form  of  gossip  ;  heroic  in  virtue  of 
its  high  pretensions  ;  but  still  gossip,  because 
it  turns  on  personalities.  You  can  keep  no 
men  long,  nor  Scotchmen  at  all,  off  moral  or 


154         Memories  and  Portraits 

theological  discussion.  These  are  to  all  the 
world  what  law  is  to  lawyers  ;  they  are  every- 
body's technicalities  ;  the  medium  through 
which  all  con?ider  life,  and  the  dialect  in 
which  they  express  their  judgments.  I 
knew  three  young  men  who  walked  together 
daily  for  some  two  months  in  a  solemn  and 
beautiful  forest  and  in  cloudless  summer 
weather ;  daily  they  talked  with  unabated 
zest,  and  yet  scarce  wandered  that  whole  time 
beyond  two  subjects — theology  and  love. 
And  perhaps  neither  a  court  of  love  nor  an 
assembly  of  divines  would  have  granted  their 
premisses  or  welcomed  their  conclusions. 

Conclusions,  indeed,  are  not  often  reached 
by  talk  any  more  than  by  private  thinking. 
That  is  not  the  profit.  The  profit  is  in  the 
exercise,  and  above  all  in  the  experience ; 
for  when  we  reason  at  large  on  any  subject, 
we  review  our  state  and  history  in  life. 
From  time  to  time,  however,  and  specially, 
I  think,  in  talking  art,  talk  becomes  effective, 
conquering  like  war,  widening  the  bound- 
aries of  knowledge  like  an   exploration.     A 


Talk  and  Talkers  1 5  5 

point  arises  ;  the  question  takes  a  problem- 
atical, a  baffling,  yet  a  likely  air  ;  the  talkers 
begin  to  feel  lively  presentiments  of  some 
conclusion  near  at  hand  ;  towards  this  they 
strive  with  emulous  ardour,  each  by  his  own 
path,  and  struggling  for  first  utterance  ;  and 
then  one  leaps  upon  the  summit  of  that 
matter  with  a  shout,  and  almost  at  the  same 
moment  the  other  is  beside  him ;  and  behold 
they  are  agreed.  Like  enough,  the  progress  is 
illusory,  a  mere  cat's  cradle  having  been  wound 
and  unwound  out  of  words.  But  the  sense 
of  joint  discovery  is  none  the  less  giddy  and 
inspiriting.  And  in  the  life  of  the  talker 
such  triumphs,  though  imaginary,  are  neither 
few  nor  far  apart ;  they  are  attained  with 
speed  and  pleasure,  in  the  hour  of  mirth  ; 
and  by  the  nature  of  the  process,  they  are 
always  worthily  shared. 

There  is  a  certain  attitude,  combative 
at  once  and  deferential,  eager  to  fight 
yet  most  averse  to  quarrel,  which  marks 
out  at  once  the  talkable  man.  It  is  not 
eloquence,  not  fairness,  not  obstinacy,  but  a 


I  5  6         Memories  and  Portraits 

certain  proportion  of  all  of  these  that  I  lo^-e 
to  encounter  in  my  amicable  adversaries. 
They  must  not  be  pontiffs  holding  doctrine, 
but  huntsmen  questing  after  elements  of 
truth.  Neither  must  they  be  boys  to  be 
instructed,  but  fellow-teachers  with  whom  I 
may  wrangle  and  agree  on  equal  terms.  We 
must  reach  some  solution,  some  shadow  of 
consent  ;  for  without  that,  eager  talk  becomes 
a  torture.  But  we  do  not  wish  to  reach  it 
cheaply,  or  quickly,  or  without  the  tussle  and 
effort  wherein  pleasure  lies. 

The  very  best  talker,  with  me,  is  one 
whom  I  shall  call  Spring-Heel'd  Jack.  I 
say  so,  because  I  never  knew  any  one  who 
mingled  so  largely  the  possible  ingredients 
of  converse.  In  the  Spanish  proverb,  the 
fourth  man  necessary  to  compound  a  salad, 
is  a  madman  to  mix  it :  Jack  is  that  mad- 
man. I  know  not  which  is  more  remark- 
able ;  the  insane  lucidity  of  his  conclusions, 
the  humorous  eloquence  of  his  language,  or 
his  power  of  method,  bringing  the  whole 
of  life   into  the  focus  of  the   subject  treated. 


Talk  and  Talkers  i  5  7 

mixing  the  conversational  salad  like  a 
drunken  god.  He  doubles  like  the  serpent, 
changes  and  flashes  like  the  shaken  kaleido- 
scope, transmigrates  bodily  into  the  views 
of  others,  and  so,  in  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye  and  with  a  heady  rapture,  turns  ques- 
tions inside  out  and  flings  them  empty 
before  you  on  the  ground,  like  a  triumphant 
conjuror.  It  is  my  common  practice  when 
a  piece  of  conduct  puzzles  me,  to  attack  it 
in  the  presence  of  Jack  with  such  grossness, 
such  partiality  and  such  wearing  iteration, 
as  at  length  shall  spur  him  up  in  its  defence. 
In  a  moment  he  transmigrates,  dons  the 
required  character,  and  with  moonstruck 
philosophy  justifies  the  act  in  question.  I 
can  fancy  nothing  to  compare  with  the  %nm 
of  these  impersonations,  the  strange  scale 
of  language,  flying  from  Shakespeare  to  Kant, 
and  from  Kant  to  Major  D}'ng\vcll — 

"As  fast  as  a  musician  scatters  sounds 
Out  of  an  instrument — " 

the  sudden,  sweeping  generalisations,  the 
absurd    irrelevant     particularities,     tlic     wit, 


158         ]\Iemories  and  Po7'traits 

wisdom,  folly,  humour,  eloquence  and  bathos, 
each  startling  in  its  kind,  and  yet  all  lumin- 
ous in  the  admired  disorder  of  their  com- 
bination. A  talker  of  a  different  calibre, 
though  belonging  to  the  same  school,  is 
Burly.  Burly  is  a  man  of  a  great  presence  ; 
he  commands  a  larger  atmosphere,  gives  the 
impression  of  a  grosser  mass  of  character 
than  most  men.  It  has  been  said  of  him 
that  his  presence  could  be  felt  in  a  room 
you  entered  blindfold  ;  and  the  same,  I 
think,  has  been  said  of  other  powerful  con- 
stitutions condemned  to  much  physical  in- 
action. There  is  something  boisterous  and 
piratic  in  Burly's  manner  of  talk  which  suits 
well  enough  with  this  impression.  He  will 
roar  you  down,  he  will  bury  his  face  in  his 
hands,  he  will  undergo  passions  of  revolt 
and  agony  ;  and  meanwhile  his  attitude  of 
mind  is  really  both  conciliatory  and  recep- 
tive ;  and  after  Pistol  has  been  out-Pistol'd, 
and  the  welkin  rung  for  hours,  you  begin  to 
perceive  a  certain  subsidence  in  these  spring 
torrents,  points  of  agreement  issue,  and  you 


Talk  and  Talkers  1 5  9 

end  arm-in-arm,  and  in  a  glow  of  mutual 
admiration.  The  outcry  only  serves  to 
make  your  final  union  the  more  unexpected 
and  precious.  Throughout  there  has  been 
perlect  sincerity,  perfect  intelligence,  a  desire 
to  hear  although  not  always  to  listen,  and 
an  unaffected  eagerness  to  meet  concessions. 
You  have,  vi'ith  Burly,  none  of  the  dangers 
that  attend  debate  with  Spring- Heel'd  Jack  ; 
who  may  at  any  moment  turn  his  powers  of 
transmigration  on  yourself,  create  for  you  a 
view  you  never  held,  and  then  furiously  fall 
on  you  for  holding  it.  These,  at  least,  are 
my  two  favourites,  and  both  are  loud, 
copious,  intolerant  talkers.  This  argues  that 
I  myself  am  in  the  same  category  ;  for  if 
we  love  talking  at  all,  we  love  a  bright, 
fierce  adversary,  who  will  hold  his  ground, 
foot  by  foot,  in  much  our  own  manner,  sell 
his  attention  dearly,  and  give  us  our  full 
measure  of  the  dust  and  exertion  of  battle 
Both  these  men  can  be  beat  from  a  position, 
but  it  takes  six  hours  to  do  it ;  a  high  and 
hard   adventure,    worth    attempting.      With 


1 60         Memories  and  Portraits 

both  you  can  pass  days  in  an  enchanted 
country  of  the  mind,  with  people,  scenery 
and  manners  of  its  own  ;  Hve  a  Hfe  apart, 
more  arduous,  active  and  glowing  than  any 
real  existence  ;  and  come  forth  again  when 
the  talk  is  over,  as  out  of  a  theatre  or  a 
dream,  to  find  the  east  wind  still  blowing 
and  the  chimney-pots  of  the  old  battered  city 
still  around  you.  Jack  has  the  far  finer  mind, 
Burly  the  far  more  honest  ;  Jack  gives  us 
the  animated  poetry.  Burly  the  romantic 
prose,  of  similar  themes  ;  the  one  glances 
high  like  a  meteor  and  makes  a  light  in 
darkness  ;  the  other,  with  many  changing 
hues  of  fire,  burns  at  the  sea-level,  like  a 
conflagration  ;  but  both  have  the  same 
humour  and  artistic  interests,  the  same  un- 
quenched  ardour  in  pursuit,  the  same  gusts 
of  talk  and  thunderclaps  of  contradiction. 

Cockshot  ^  is  a  different  article,  but 
vastly  entertaining,  and  has  been  meat  and 
drink  to  me  for  many  a  long  evening.  His 
manner     is     dr)',     brisk     and     pertinacious, 

^  The  late  Fleeming  Jcnkin. 


Talk  and  Talkers  1 6 1 

and  the  choice  of  words  not  much.  The 
point  about  him  is  his  extraordinary  readi- 
ness and  spirit.  You  can  propound  nothing 
but  he  has  either  a  theory  about  it  ready- 
mad;,  or  will  have  one  instantly  on  the 
stocks,  and  proceed  to  lay  its  timbers  and 
launch  it  in  your  presence.  "  Let  me  see," 
he  will  say.  "  Give  me  a  moment.  I  should 
have  some  theory  for  that."  A  blither  spec- 
tacle than  the  vigour  with  which  he  sets 
about  the  task,  it  were  hard  to  fancy.  He  is 
possessed  by  a  demoniac  energy,  welding  the 
elements  for  his  life,  and  bending  ideas,  as 
an  athlete  bends  a  horseshoe,  with  a  visible 
and  lively  effort.  He  has,  in  theorising,  a 
compass,  an  art  ;  what  I  would  call  the 
synthetic  gusto ;  something  of  a  Herbert 
Spencer,  who  should  see  the  fun  of  the 
thing.  You  are  not  bound,  and  no  more  is 
he,  to  place  your  faith  in  these  brand-new 
opinions.  But  some  of  them  are  right 
enough,  durable  even  for  life ;  and  the 
poorest  ser  7e  for  a  cock-shy — as  when   idle 

people,  after  picnics,  float  a  bottle  on  a  pond 
M 


1 62         Memories  and  Porti^aits 

and  have  an  hour's  diversion  ere  it  sinks. 
Whichever  they  are,  serious  opinions  oi 
humours  of  the  moment,  he  still  defends  his 
ventures  with  indefatigable  wit  and  spirit, 
hitting  ravagely  himself,  but  taking  punish- 
ment like  a  man.  He  knows  and  never 
forgets  that  people  calk,  first  of  all,  for  the 
sake  of  talking ;  conducts  himself  in  the 
ring,  to  use  the  old  slang,  like  a  thorough 
"  glutton,"  and  honestly  enjoys  a  telling 
facer  from  his  adversary.  Cockshot  is 
bottled  effervescency,  the  sworn  foe  of  sleep. 
Three-in-the-morning  Cockshot,  says  a  victim. 
His  talk  is  like  the  driest  of  all  imaginable 
dry  champagnes.  Sleight  of  hand  and 
inimitable  quickness  are  the  qualities  by 
which  he  lives.  Athelred,  on  the  other 
hand,  presents  you  with  the  spectacle  of  a 
sincere  and  somewhat  slow  nature  thinking 
aloud.  He  is  the  most  unready  man  I  ever 
knew  to  shine  in  conversation.  You  may 
see  him  sometimes  wrestle  with  a  refractory 
jest  for  a  minute  or  two  together,  and  per- 
haps   fail    to    throw    it   in    the    end.       And 


Talk  and  Talkers  163 

there  is  something  singularly  engaging,  often 
instructive,  in  the  simplicity  with  which  he 
thus  exposes  the  process  as  well  as  the 
result,  the  works  as  well  as  the  dial  of  the 
clock.  Withal  he  has  his  hours  of  inspira- 
tion. Apt  words  come  to  him  as  if  by 
accident,  and,  coming  from  deeper  down, 
they  smack  the  more  personally,  they  have 
the  more  of  fine  old  crusted  humanity,  rich 
in  sediment  and  humour.  There  are  sayings 
of  his  in  which  he  has  stamped  himself  into 
the  very  grain  of  the  language  ;  you  would 
think  he  must  have  worn  the  words  next 
his  skin  and  slept  with  them.  Yet  it  is  not 
as  a  sayer  of  particular  good  things  that 
Athelred  is  most  to  be  regarded,  rather  as 
the  stalwart  woodman  of  thought.  I  have 
pulled  on  a  light  cord  often  enough,  while 
he  )ias  been  wielding  the  broad-axe ;  and 
between  us,  on  this  unequal  division,  many 
a  specious  fallacy  has  fallen.  I  have  known 
him  to  battle  the  same  question  night  after 
night  for  years,  keeping  it  in  the  reign  of 
talk,  constantly  applying  it  and   re-applying 


1 64         Memories  and  Portraits 

it  to  life  with  humorous  or  grave  intention, 
and  all  the  while,  never  hurrying,  nor  flag- 
ging, nor  taking  an  unfair  advantage  of  the 
facts.  Jack  at  a  given  moment,  when  aris- 
ing, as  it  were,  from  the  tripod,  can  be  more 
radiantly  just  to  those  from  whom  he  differs; 
but  then  the  tenor  of  his  thoughts  is  even 
calumnious  ;  while  Athelred,  slower  to  forge 
excuses,  is  yet  slower  to  condemn,  and  sits 
over  the  welter  of  the  world,  vacillating  but 
still  judicial,  and  still  faithfully  contending 
with  his  doubts. 

Both  the  last  talkers  deal  much  in  points 
of  conduct  and  religion  studied  in  the  "  dry 
light  "  of  prose.  Indirectly  and  as  if  against 
his  will  the  same  elements  from  time  to  time 
appear  in  the  troubled  and  poetic  talk  of 
Opalstein.  His  various  and  exotic  know- 
ledge, complete  although  unready  sympathies, 
and  fine,  full,' discriminative  flow  of  language, 
fit  him  out  to  be  the  best  of  talkers  ;  so 
perhaps  he  is  with  some,  not  quite  with  me 
— proxime  accessit,  I  should  say.  He  sings 
the  praises  of  the  earth  and  the  arts,  flowers 


Talk  and  Talkers  165 

and  jewels,  wine  and  music,  in  a  ntoonlight, 
serenading  manner,  as  to  the  light  guitar ; 
even  wisdom  comes  from  his  tongue  like 
singing  ;  no  one  is,  indeed,  more  tuneful  in 
the  upper  notes.  But  even  while  he  sings 
the  song  of  the  Sirens,  he  still  hearkens  to 
the  barking  of  the  Sphinx.  Jarring  Byronic 
notes  interrupt  the  flow  of  his  Horatian 
humours.  His  mirth  has  something  of  the 
tragedy  of  the  world  for  its  perpetual  back- 
ground ;  and  he  feasts  like  Don  Giovanni  to 
a  double  orchestra,  one  lightly  sounding  for 
the  dance,  one  pea.ing  Beethoven  in  the 
distance.  He  is  not  truly  reconciled  either 
with  life  or  with  himself;  and  this  instant 
war  in  his  members  sometimes  divides  the 
man's  attention.  He  does  not  always,  per- 
haps not  often,  frankly  surrender  himself  in 
conversation.  He  brings  into  the  talk  '^thcr 
thoughts  than  those  which  he  expresses  ;  you 
are  conscious  that  he  keeps  an  eye  on  some- 
thing else,  that  he  does  not  shake  off  the 
world,  nor  quite  forget  himself  Hence  arise 
occasional   disappointments  ;    even   an   occa- 


T  66         Memories  and  Portraits 

sional  unfairness  for  his  companions,  who 
find  themselves  one  day  giving  too  much, 
and  the  next,  when  they  are  wary  out  of 
season,  giving  perhaps  too  httle.  Purcel  is 
in  another  class  from  any  I  have  mentioned. 
He  is  no  debater,  but  appears  in  conversa- 
tion, as  occasion  rises,  in  two  distinct  charac- 
ters, one  of  which  I  admire  and  fear,  and 
the  other  love.  In  the  first,  he  is  radiantly 
civil  and  rather  silent,  sits  on  a  high,  courtly 
hilltop,  and  from  that  vantage-ground  drops 
you  his  remarks  like  favours.  He  seems 
not  to  share  in  our  sublunary  contentions  ; 
he  wears  no  sign  of  interest  ;  when  on  a 
sudden  there  falls  in  a  crystal  of  wit,  so 
polished  that  the  dull  do  not  perceive  it, 
but  so  right  that  the  sensitive  are  silenced. 
True  talk  should  have  more  body  and  blood, 
should  be  louder,  vainer  and  more  declara- 
tory of  the  man  ;  the  true  talker  should 
not  hold  so  steady  an  advantage  over 
whom  he  speaks  with  ;  and  that  is  one 
reason  out  of  a  score  why  I  prefer  my 
Purcel    in    his    second    character,    when    he 


Talk  and  Talkers  167 

unbends  into  a  strain  of  graceful  gossip, 
singing  like  the  fireside  kettle.  In  these 
moods  he  has  an  elegant  homeliness  that 
rings  of  the  true  Queen  Anne,  I  know 
another  person  who  attains,  in  his  moments, 
to  the  insolence  of  a  Restoration  comedy^ 
speaking,  I  declare,  as  Congreve  wrote  ;  but 
that  is  a  sport  of  nature,  and  scarce  falls 
under  the  rubric,  for  there  is  none,  alas  !  to 
give  him  answer. 

One  last  remark  occurs  :  It  is  the  mark 
of  genuine  conversation  that  the  sayings  can 
scarce  be  quoted  with  their  full  effect  beyond 
the  circle  of  common  friends.  To  have  their 
proper  weight  they  should  appear  in  a 
biography,  and  with  the  portrait  of  the 
speaker.  Good  talk  is  dramatic  ;  it  is  like 
an  impromptu  piece  of  acting  where  each 
should  represent  himself  to  the  greatest  ad- 
vantage ;  and  that  is  the  best  kind  of  talk 
where  each  speaker  is  most  fully  and  candidly 
himself,  and  where,  if  you  were  to  shift  the 
speeches  round  from  one  to  another,  there 
would    be   the   greatest   loss    in    significance 


1 68         Memories  and  Portraits 

and  perspicuity.  It  is  for  this  reason  that 
talk  depends  so  wholly  on  our  company. 
We  should  like  to  introduce  Falstaff  and 
Mercutio,  or  Falstaff  and  Sir  Toby ;  but 
Falstaff  in  talk  with  Cordelia  seems  even 
painful.  Most  of  us,  by  the  Protean  quality 
of  man,  can  talk  to  some  degree  with  all  ; 
but  the  true  talk,  that  strikes  out  all  the 
slumbering  best  of  us,  comes  only  with  the 
peculiar  brethren  of  our  spirits,  is  founded  as 
deep  as  love  in  the  constitution  of  our  being, 
and  is  a  thing  to  relish  with  all  our  energy, 
while  yet  we  have  it,  and  to  be  grateful  for 
for  ever. 


XI 

TALK   AND   TALKERS* 

II 

TN  the  last  paper  there  was  perhaps  too 
much  about  mere  debate ;  and  there 
was  nothing  said  at  all  about  that  kind  of 
talk  which  is  merely  luminous  and  restful, 
a  higher  power  of  silence,  the  quiet  of  the 
evening  shared  by  ruminating  friends.  There 
is  something,  aside  from  personal  preference, 
to  be  alleged  in  support  of  this  omission. 
Those  who  are  no  chimney-cornerers,  who 
rejoice  in  the  social  thunderstorm,  have  a 
ground  in  reason  for  their  choice.  They  get 
little  rest  indeed  ;  but  restfulness  is  a  quality 

*  This  sequel  was  called  forth  by  an  excellent  article  in 
The  Spectator. 


1 70         Memo7'ies  and  Portraits 

for  cattle  ;  the  virtues  are  all  active,  life  is 
alert,  and  it  is  in  repose  that  men  prepare 
themselves  for  evil.  On  the  other  hand, 
they  are  bruised  into  a  knowledge  of  them- 
selves and  others  ;  they  have  in  a  high 
degree  the  fencer's  pleasure  in  dexterity 
displayed  and  proved  ;  what  they  get  they 
get  upon  life's  terms,  paying  for  it  as  they 
go  ;  and  once  the  talk  is  launched,  they  are 
assured  of  honest  dealing  from  an  adversary 
eager  like  themselves.  The  aboriginal  man 
within  us,  the  cave-dweller,  still  lusty  as 
when  he  fought  tooth  and  nail  for  roots 
and  berries,  scents  this  kind  of  equal  battle 
from  afar  ;  it  is  like  his  old  primseval  days 
upon  the  crags,  a  return  to  the  sincerity  of 
savage  life  from  the  comfortable  fictions  of 
the  civilised.  And  if  it  be  delightful  to  the 
Old  Man,  it  is  none  the  less  profitable  to  his 
younger  brother,  the  conscientious  gentle- 
man. I  feel  never  quite  sure  of  your  urbane 
and  smiling  coteries  ;  I  fear  they  indulge 
a  man's  vanities  in  silence,  suffer  him  to 
encroach,  encourage  him  on  to  be  an  nss,  and 


Talk  and  Talkers  1 7 1 

send  him  forth  again,  not  merely  contemned 
for  the  moment,  but  radically  more  con- 
temptible than  when  he  entered.  But  if 
I  have  a  flushed,  blustering  fellow  for  my 
opposite,  bent  on  carrying  a  point,  my 
vanity  is  sure  to  have  its  ears  rubbed,  once 
at  least,  in  the  course  of  the  debate.  He 
will  not  spare  me  when  we  differ  ;  he  will 
not  fear  to  demonstrate  my  folly  to  my  face. 
For  many  natures  there  is  not  much 
charm  in  the  still,  chambered  society,  the 
circle  of  bland  countenances,  the  digestive 
silence,  the  admired  remark,  the  flutter  of 
affectionate  approval.  They  demand  more 
atmosphere  and  exercise  ;  "  a  gale  upon  their 
spirits,"  as  our  pious  ancestors  would  phrase 
it ;  to  have  their  wits  well  breathed  in  an 
uproarious  Valhalla.  And  I  suspect  that 
the  choice,  given  their  character  and  faults, 
is  one  to  be  defended.  The  purely  wise 
are  silenced  by  facts  ;  they  talk  in  a  clear 
atmosphere,  problems  lying  around  them 
like  a  view  in  nature  ;  if  they  can  be  shown 
to  be   somewhat  in   the  wrong,  they  digest 


1/2         Memories  and  Portraits 

the  reproof  like  a  thrashing,  and  make  better 
intellectual  blood.  They  stand  corrected  by 
a  whisper  ;  a  word  or  a  glance  reminds  them 
of  the  great  eternal  law.  But  it  is  not  so 
with  all.  Others  in  conversation  seek  rather 
contact  with  their  fellow-men  than  increase 
of  knowledge  or  clarity  of  thought.  The 
drama,  not  the  philosophy,  of  life  is  the 
sphere  of  their  intellectual  activity.  Even 
when  they  pursue  truth,  they  desire  as  much 
as  possible  of  what  we  may  call  human 
scenery  along  the  road  they  follow.  They 
dwell  in  the  heart  of  life  ;  the  blood  sound- 
ing in  their  ears,  their  eyes  laying  hold  of 
what  delights  them  with  a  brutal  avidity 
that  makes  them  blind  to  all  besides,  their 
interest  riveted  on  people,  living,  loving, 
talking,  tangible  people.  To  a  man  of  this 
description,  the  sphere  of  argument  seems 
very  pale  and  ghostly.  By  a  strong  ex- 
pression, a  perturbed  countenance,  floods  of 
tears,  an  insult  which  his  conscience  obliges 
him  to  swallow,  he  is  brought  round  to 
knowledge  which  no   syllogism   would   have 


Talk  and  Talkers  1 7  3 

conveyed  to  him.  His  own  experience  is 
so  vivid,  he  is  so  superlatively  conscious  of 
himself,  that  if,  day  after  day,  he  is  allowed 
to  hector  and  hear  nothing  but  approving 
eclioes,  he  will  lose  his  hold  on  the  soberness 
of  things  and  take  himself  in  earnest  for  a 
god.  Talk  might  be  to  such  an  one  the 
very  way  of  moral  ruin  ;  the  school  where 
he  might  learn  to  be  at  once  intolerable  and 
ridiculous. 

This  character  is  perhaps  commoner 
than  philosophers  suppose.  And  for  per- 
sons  of  that  stamp  to  learn  much  by 
conversation,  they  must  speak  with  their 
superiors,  not  in  intellect,  for  that  is  a 
superiority  that  must  be  proved,  but  in 
station.  If  they  cannot  find  a  friend  to 
bully  them  for  their  good,  they  must  find 
either  an  old  man,  a  woman,  or  some  one 
so  far  below  them  in  the  artificial  order  of 
society,  that  courtesy  may  be  particularly 
exercised. 

The  best  teachers  are  the  aged.  To  the 
old    our    mouths    are    always  partly  closed ; 


1 74         Memories  and  Portraits 

we  must  swallow  our  obvious  retorts  and 
listen.  They  sit  above  our  heads,  on  life's 
raised  dais,  and  appeal  at  once  to  our  respect 
and  pity.  A  flavour  of  the  old  school,  a 
touch  of  something  different  in  theV  manner 
— which  is  freer  and  rounder,  if  they  come 
of  what  is  called  a  good  family,  and  often 
more  timid  and  precise  if  they  are  of  the 
middle  class — serves,  in  these  days,  to  ac- 
centuate the  difference  of  age  and  add  a 
distinction  to  gray  hairs.  But  their  superi- 
ority is  founded  more  deeply  than  by  out- 
ward marks  or  gestures.  They  are  before 
us  in  the  march  of  man  ;  they  have  more  or 
less  solved  the  irking  problem  ;  they  have 
battled  through  the  equinox  of  life  ;  in  good 
and  evil  they  have  held  their  course  ;  and 
now,  without  open  shame,  they  near  the 
crown  and  harbour.  It  may  be  we  have 
been  struck  with  one  of  fortune's  darts  ;  we 
can  scarce  be  civil,  so  cruelly  is  our  spirit 
tossed.  Yet  long  before  we  were  so  much 
as  thought  upon,  the  like  calamity  befe  1  the 
old  man  or  woman  that  now,  with  pleasant 


Talk  and  Talkers  1 7  5 

humour,  rallies  us  upon  our  inattention,  sit- 
ting composed  in  the  holy  evening  of  man's 
life,  in  the  clear  shining  after  rain.  We 
grow  ashamed  of  our  distresses,  new  and  hot 
and  coarse,  like  villainous  roadside  brandy; 
we  see  life  in  aerial  perspective,  under  the 
heavens  of  faith  ;  and  out  of  the  worst,  in 
the  mere  preocrjce  of  contented  elders,  look 
forward  and  take  patience.  Fear  shrinks 
before  them  "^  like  a  thing  reproved,"  not 
the  flitting  av)d  ineffectual  fear  of  death,  but 
the  instant,  dwelling  terror  of  the  responsi- 
bilities and  revenges  of  life.  Their  speech, 
indeed,  is  timid  ;  they  report  lions  in  the 
path ;  they  counsel  a  meticulous  footing ; 
but  their  serene,  marred  faces  are  more 
eloquent  and  tell  another  story.  Where 
they  have  gone,  we  will  go  also,  not  very 
greatly  fearing ;  what  they  have  endured 
unbroken,  we  also,  God  helping  us,  will 
make  a  shift  to  bear. 

Not  only  is  the  presence  of  the  aged  in  it- 
self remedial,  but  their  minds  are  stored  with 
antidotes,  wisdom's  simples,  plain  considera- 


1/6         Memories  and  Portraits 

tions  overlooked  by  youth.  They  have  matter 
to  communicate,  be  they  never  so  stupid.  Their 
talk  is  not  merely  literature,  it  is  great  litera- 
ture ;  classic  in  virtue  of  the  speaker's  detach- 
ment, studded,  like  a  book  of  travel,  with 
things  we  should  not  otherwise  have  learnt. 
In  virtue,  I  have  said,  of  the  speaker's  detach- 
ment,— and  this  is  why,  of  two  old  men,  the 
one  who  is  not  your  father  speaks  to  you 
with  the  more  sensible  authority;  for  in  the 
paternal  relation  the  oldest  have  lively  in- 
terests and  remain  still  young.  Thus  I  have 
known  two  young  men  great  friends  ;  each 
swore  by  the  other's  father ;  the  father  of 
each  swore  by  the  other  lad  ;  and  yet  each 
pair  of  parent  and  child  w^ere  perpetually  by 
the  ears.  This  is  typical  :  it  reads  like  the 
germ  of  some  kindly  comedy. 

The  old  appear  in  conversation  in  two 
characters  :  the  critically  silent  and  the  gar- 
rulous anecdotic.  The  last  is  perhaps  what 
we  look  for  ;  it  is  perhaps  the  more  instruc- 
tive. An  old  gentleman,  well  on  in  years, 
sits  handsomely  and    naturally  in    the  bow* 


Talk  and  Talkers  177 

window  of  his  age,  scanning  experience  with 
reverted  eye ;  and  chirping  and  smiling,  com- 
municates tlie  accidents  and  reads  the  lesson 
of  his  long  career.  Opinions  are  strengthened, 
indeed,  but  they  are  also  weeded  out  in  the 
course  of  years.  What  remains  steadily  pre- 
sent to  the  eye  of  the  retired  veteran  in  his 
hermitage,  what  still  ministers  to  his  content, 
what  still  quickens  his  old  honest  heart — 
these  are  "  the  real  long-lived  things "  that 
Whitman  tells  us  to  prefer.  Where  youth 
agrees  with  age,  not  where  they  differ,  wisdom 
lies  ;  and  it  is  when  the  young  disciple  finds 
his  heart  to  beat  in  tune  w^ith  his  gray-bearded 
teacher's  that  a  lesson  may  be  learned.  I 
have  known  one  old  gentleman,  whom  I  ma}' 
name,  for  he  is  now  gathered  to  his  stock — 
Robert  Hunter,  Sheriff  of  Dumbarton,  and 
author  of  an  excellent  law-book  still  re-edited 
and  republished.  Whether  he  was  originally 
big  or  little  is  more  than  I  can  guess.  When 
I  knew  him  he  was  all  fallen  away  and  fallen 
in ;  crooked   and  shrunken ;  buckled    into  a 

stiff  waistcoat   for  support ;  troubled  by  ail- 
N 


1 7  8         Memories  and  Portraits 

mcnts,  which  kept  him  hobbHng  in  and  out 
of  the  room  ;  one  foot  gouty  ;  a  wig  for 
decency,  not  for  deception,  on  his  head  ;  close 
shaved,  except  under  his  chin — and  for  that 
he  never  failed  to  apologise,  for  it  went  sore 
against  the  traditions  of  his  life.  You  can 
imagine  how  he  would  fare  in  a  novel  by  Miss 
Mather  ;  yet  this  rag  of  a  Chelsea  veteran 
lived  to  his  last  year  in  the  plenitude  of  all 
that  is  best  in  man,  brimming  with  human 
kindness,  and  staunch  as  a  Roman  soldier 
under  his  manifold  infirmities.  You  could 
not  say  that  he  had  lost  his  memory,  for  he 
would  repeat  Shakespeare  and  Webster  and 
Jeremy  Taylor  and  Burke  by  the  page 
together  ;  but  the  parchment  was  filled  up, 
there  was  no  room  for  fresh  inscriptions,  and 
he  was  capable  of  repeating  the  same  anec- 
dote on  many  successive  visits.  His  voice 
survived  in  its  full  power,  and  he  took  a  pride 
in  using  it.  On  his  last  voyage  as  Commis- 
sioner of  Lighthouses,  he  hailed  a  ship  at 
sea  and  made  himself  clearly  audible  without 
a  speaking  trumpet,  ruffling  the  while  with  a 


Talk  and  Talkers  1 79 

proper  vanity  in  his  achievement.  He  had  a 
habit  of  eking  out  his  words  with  interro- 
gative hems,  which  was  puzzHng  and  a  httle 
wearisome,  suited  ill  with  his  appearance,  and 
seemed  a  survival  from  some  former  stage  of 
bodily  portliness.  Of  yore,  when  he  was  a 
great  pedestrian  and  no  enemy  to  good  claret, 
he  may  have  pointed  with  these  minute  guns 
his  allocutions  to  the  bench.  His  humour 
was  perfectly  equable,  set  beyond  the  reach 
of  fate  ;  gout,  rheumatism,  stone  and  gravel 
might  have  combined  their  forces  against 
that  frail  tabernacle,  but  when  I  came  round 
on  Sunday  evening,  he  would  lay  aside 
Jeremy  Taylor's  Life  of  Christ  and  greet  me 
with  the  same  open  brow,  the  same  kind 
formality  of  manner.  His  opinions  and  sym- 
pathies dated  the  man  almost  to  a  decade. 
He  had  begun  life,  under  his  mother's  in- 
fluence, as  an  admirer  of  Junius,  but  on 
maturer  knowledge  had  transferred  his  ad- 
miration to  Burke.  He  cautioned  me,  with 
entire  gravity,  to  be  punctilious  in  writing 
English;  never  to  forget  that  I  was  a  Scotch- 


1 80         Memories  and  Portraits 

man,  that  English  was  a  foreign  tongue,  and 
that  if  I  attempted  the  colloquial,  I  should 
certainly  be  shamed  :  the  remark  was  appo- 
site, I  suppose,  in  the  days  of  David  Hume. 
Scott  was  too  new  for  him  ;  he  had  known 
the  author — known  him,  too,  for  a  Tory  ; 
and  to  the  genuine  classic  a  contemporary  is 
always  something  of  a  trouble.  He  had  the 
old,  serious  love  of  the  play;  had  even,  ^s  he 
was  proud  to  tell,  played  a  certain  part  in  the 
history  of  Shakespearian  revivals,  for  he  had 
successfully  pressed  on  Murray,  of  the  old 
Edinburgh  Theatre,  the  idea  of  producing 
Shakespeare's  fairy  pieces  with  great  scenic 
display.  A  moderate  in  religion,  he  was 
much  struck  in  the  last  years  of  his  life  by  a 
conversation  with  two  young  lads,  revivalists. 
"  H'm,"  he  would  say — "  new  to  me.  I  have 
had — h'm — no  such  experience."  It  struck 
him,  not  with  pain,  rather  with  a  solemn 
philosophic  interest,  that  he,  a  Christian  as 
he  hoped,  and  a  Christian  of  so  old  a  stand- 
ing, should  hear  these  young  fellov/s  talking 
of  his  own  subject,  his  own  weapons  that  he 


Talk  and  Talkers  1 8  \ 

had  fought  the  battle  of  Hfe  with, — "  and — 
h'm — not  understand."  In  this  wise  and 
graceful  attitude  he  did  justice  to  himself  and 
others,  reposed  unshaken  in  his  old  beliefs, 
and  recognised  their  limits  without  anger  or 
alarm.  His  last  recorded  remark,  on  the  last 
night  of  his  life,  was  after  he  had  been  arguing 
against  Calvinism  with  his  minister  and  was 
interrupted  by  an  intolerable  pang.  "  After 
all,''  he  said,  "  of  all  the  'isms,  I  know  none 
so  bad  as  rheumatism."  My  own  last  sight 
of  him  was  some  time  before,  when  we  dined 
together  at  an  inn  ;  he  had  been  on  circuit 
for  he  stuck  to  his  duties  like  a  chief  part  of 
his  existence;  and  I  remember  it  as  the  only 
occasion  on  which  he  ever  soiled  his  lips  with 
slang — a  thing  he  loathed.  We  were  both 
Roberts;  and  as  we  took  our  places  at  table, 
he  addressed  me  with  a  twinkle  :  "  We  are 
just  what  you  would  call  two  bob."  He 
offered  me  port,  I  remember,  as  the  proper 
milk  of  youth;  spoke  of  "twenty-shilling 
notes;"  and  throughout  the  meal  was  full  of 
old-world  pleasantry  and  quaintness,  like  an 


1 82         Memories  and  Po7'traits 

ancient  boy  on  a  holiday.  But  what  I  recall 
chiefly  was  his  confession  that  he  had  never 
read  Othello  to  an  end.  Shakespeare  was 
his  continual  study.  He  loved  nothing  better 
than  to  display  his  knowledge  and  memory 
by  adducing  parallel  passages  from  Shake- 
speare, passages  where  the  same  word  was 
employed,  or  the  same  idea  differently  treated. 
But  Othello  had  beaten  him.  "  That  noble 
gentleman  and  that  noble  lady — h'm — too 
painful  for  me."  The  same  night  the  hoard- 
ings were  covered  with  posters,  "  Burlesque 
of  Othello''  and  the  contrast  blazed  up  in  my 
mind  like  a  bonfire.  An  unforgettable  look 
it  gave  me  into  that  kind  man's  soul.  His 
acquaintance  was  indeed  a  liberal  and  pious 
education.  All  the  humanities  were  taught 
in  that  bare  dining-room  beside  his  gouty 
footstool.  He  was  a  piece  of  good  advice  ; 
he  was  himself  the  instance  that  pointed  and 
adorned  his  various  talk.  Nor  could  a  young 
man  have  found  elsewhere  a  place  so  set 
apart  from  envy,  fear,  discontent,  or  any  of 
the   passions  that  debase  ;    a  life  so  honest 


Talk  and  Talkers  183 

and  composed ;  a  soul  like  an  ancient  violin, 
sc  subdued  to  harmony,  responding  to  a 
touch  in  music — as  in  that  dining-room, 
with  Mr,  Hunter  chatting  at  the  eleventh 
hour,  under  the  shadow  of  eternity,  fearless 
and  gentle. 

The  second  class  of  old  people  are  not 
anecdotic  ;  they  are  rather  hearers  than  talk- 
ers, listening  to  the  young  with  an  amused 
and  critical  attention.  To  have  this  sort  of 
intercourse  to  perfection,  I  think  we  must  go 
to  old  ladies.  Women  are  better  hearers 
than  men,  to  begin  with  ;  they  learn,  I  fear 
in  anguish,  to  bear  with  the  tedious  and  in- 
fantile vanity  of  the  other  sex  ;  and  we  will 
take  more  from  a  woman  than  even  from 
the  oldest  man  in  the  way  of  biting  com- 
ment. Biting  comment  is  the  chief  part, 
whether  for  profit  or  amusement,  in  this 
business.  The  old  lady  that  I  have  in  my 
eye  is  a  very  caustic  speaker,  her  tongue, 
after  years  of  practice,  in  absolute  command, 
lA'hcther  for  silence  or  attack.  If  she  chance 
to  dislike  you,  you  will   be  tempted  to  curse 


1 84         Memories  afid  Portraits 

the  malignity  of  age.  But  if  you  chance  to 
please  even  slightly,  you  will  be  listened  to 
A^ith  a  particular  laughing  grace  of  sympathy, 
and  from  time  to  time  chastised,  as  if  in 
play,  with  a  parasol  as  heavy  as  a  pole-axe. 
It  requires  a  singular  art,  as  well  as  the 
vantage-ground  of  age,  to  deal  these  stun- 
ning corrections  among  the  coxcombs  of  the 
young.  The  pill  is  disguised  in  sugar  of 
wit  ;  it  is  administered  as  a  compliment — if 
you  had  not  pleased,  you  would  not  have 
been  censured  ;  it  is  a  personal  affair — a 
hyphen,  a  trait  d'union,  between  you  and 
your  censor ;  age's  philandering,  for  her 
pleasure  and  your  good.  Incontestably  the 
young  man  feels  very  much  of  a  fool  ;  but 
he  must  be  a  perfect  Malvolio,  sick  with 
self-love,  if  he  cannot  take  an  open  buffet 
and  still  smile.  The  correction  of  silence  is 
what  kills  ;  when  you  know  you  have  trans- 
gressed, and  your  friend  says  nothing  and 
avoids  your  eye.  If  a  man  were  made  of 
gutta-percha,  his  heart  would  quail  at  such 
a  moment.      But  when    the  word    is  out,  the 


Talk  and  Talker's  1 8  5 

worst  is  over  ;  and  a  fellow  with  any  good- 
humour  at  all  may  pass  through  a  perfect 
hail  of  witty  ciiticism,  every  bare  place  on 
his  soul  hit  to  the  quick  with  a  shrewd  mis- 
sile, and  reappear,  as  if  after  a  dive,  tingling 
with  a  fine  moral  reaction,  and  ready,  with 
a  shrinking  readiness,  one-third  loath,  for  a 
repetition  of  the  discipline. 

There  are  few  women,  not  well  sunned 
and  ripened,  and  perhaps  toughened,  who 
can  thus  stand  apart  from  a  man  and  say 
the  true  thing  with  a  kind  of  genial  cruelty. 
Still  there  are  some — and  I  doubt  if  there 
be  any  man  who  can  return  the  compliment. 
The  class  of  man  represented  by  Vernon 
Whitford  in  TJie  Egoist  says,  indeed,  the  true 
thing,  but  he  says  it  stockishly.  Vernon  is 
a  noble  fellow,  and  makes,  by  the  way,  a 
noble  and  instructive  contrast  to  Daniel 
Deronda  ;  his  conduct  is  the  conduct  of  a 
man  of  honour ;  but  we  agree  with  him, 
against  our  consciences,  when  he  remorsefully 
considers  "  its  astonishing  dryness."  He  is 
the    best   of    men,    but    the   best   of  women 


1 86         Memories  and  Portraits 

manage  to  combine  all  tliat  and  something 
more,-  Their  very  faults  assist  them  ;  they 
are  helped  even  by  the  falseness  of  their 
position  in  life.  They  can  retire  into  the 
fortified  camp  of  the  proprieties.  They  can 
touch  a  subject  and  suppress  it.  The  most 
adroit  employ  a  somewhat  elaborate  reserve  as 
a  means  to  be  frank,  much  as  they  wear  gloves 
when  they  shake  hands.  But  a  man  has  the 
full  responsibility  of  his  freedom,  cannot  evade 
a  question,  can  scarce  be  silent  without  rude- 
ness, must  answer  for  his  words  upon  the  mo- 
ment, and  is  not  seldom  left  face  to  face  with 
a  damning  choice,  between  the  more  or  less 
dishonourable  wriggling  of  Deronda  and 
the  downright  woodenness  of  Vernon  Whit- 
ford. 

But  the  superiority  of  women  is  per- 
petually menaced  ;  they  do  not  sit  throned 
on  infirmities  like  the  old  ;  they  are  suitors 
as  well  as  sovereigns  ;  their  vanity  is  en- 
gaged, their  affections  are  too  apt  to  follow  ; 
and  hence  much  of  the  talk  between  the  sexes 
degenerates  into  something  unworthy  of  the 


Talk  and  TalJzers  187 

name.  The  desire  to  please,  to  shine  with  a 
certain  softness  of  lustre  and  to  draw  a  fas- 
cinating picture  of  oneself,  banishes  from 
conversation  all  that  is  sterling  and  most  of 
what  is  humorous.  As  soon  as  a  strong 
current  of  mutual  admiration  begins  to  flow, 
the  human  interest  triumphs  entirely  over 
the  intellectual,  and  the  commerce  of  words, 
consciously  or  not,  becomes  secondary  to  the 
commercing  of  eyes.  But  even  where 
this  ridiculous  danger  is  avoided,  and  a 
man  and  woman  converse  equally  and  hon- 
estly, something  in  their  nature  or  their 
education  falsifies  the  strain.  An  instinct 
prompts  them  to  agree  ;  and  where  that  is 
impossible,  to  agree  to  differ.  Should  they 
neglect  the  warning,  at  the  first  suspicion  of 
an  argument,  they  find  themselves  in  differ- 
ent hemispheres.  About  any  point  of  busi  ■ 
ness  or  conduct,  any  actual  affair  demanding 
settlement,  a  woman  will  speak  and  hsten, 
hear  and  answer  arguments,  not  only  with 
natural  wisdom,  but  with  candour  and  log'cal 
honesty.      But  if  the   subject  of  debat©    he 


1 88         Memories  and  Portraits 

something  in  the  air,  an  abstraction,  an  ex- 
cuse for  talk,  a  logical  Aunt  Sally,  then  may 
the  male  debater  instantly  abandon  hope  ;  he 
may  employ  reason,  adduce  facts,  be  supple, 
be  smiling,  be  angry,  all  shall  avail  him 
nothing ;  what  the  woman  said  first,  that 
(unless  she  has  forgotten  it)  she  will  repeat 
at  the  end.  Hence,  at  the  very  junctures 
when  a  talk  between  men  grows  brighter 
and  quicker  and  begins  to  promise  to  bear 
fruit,  talk  between  the  sexes  is  menaced  with 
dissolution.  The  point  of  difference,  the 
point  of  interest,  is  evaded  by  the  brilliant 
woman,  under  a  shower  of  irrelevant  conver- 
sational rockets  ;  it  is  bridged  by  the  discreet 
woman  with  a  rustle  of  silk,  as  she  passes 
smoothly  forward  to  the  nearest  point  of 
safety.  And  this  sort  of  prestidigitation, 
juggling  the  dangerous  topic  out  of  sight 
until  it  can  be  reintroduced  with  safety  in 
an  altered  shape,  is  a  piece  of  tactics  among 
the  true  drawing-room  queens. 

The  drawing-room  is,  indeed,  an  artificial 
place  ;  it   is   so  by  our   choice  and  for   our 


Talk  and  Talkers  189 

sins.  The  subjection  of  women  ;  the  ideal 
imposed  upon  them  from  the  cradle,  and 
worn,  like  a  hair-siiirt,  with  so  much  con- 
stancy ;  their  motherly,  superior  tenderness 
to  man's  vanity  and  self-importance  ;  their 
managing  arts — the  arts  of  a  civilised  slave 
among  good-natured  barbarians— are  all  pain- 
ful ingredients  and  all  help  to  falsify  relations. 
It  is  not  till  we  get  clear  of  that  amusing 
artificial  scene  that  genuine  relations  are 
founded,  or  ideas  honestly  compared.  In 
the  garden,  on  the  road  or  the  hillside,  or 
tete  -a-  tite  and  apart  from  interruptions, 
occasions  arise  when  we  may  learn  much 
from  any  single  woman  ;  and  nowhere  more 
often  than  in  married  life.  Marriage  is 
one  long  conversation,  chequered  by  dis- 
putes. The  disputes  are  valueless  ;  they 
but  ingrain  the  difference  ;  the  heroic  heart 
of  woman  prompting  her  at  once  to  nail  her 
colours  to  the  mast.  But  in  the  intervals, 
almost  unconsciously  and  with  no  desire  to 
shine,  the  Avhole  material  of  life  is  turned 
over    and    over,    ideas    are    struck    out    and 


1 90         Memories  and  Portraits 

shared,  the  two  persons  more  and  more 
adapt  their  notions  one  to  suit  the  other, 
and  in  process  of  time,  without  sound  of 
trumpet,  they  conduct  each  other  into  new- 
worlds  of  thought 


XII 

THE    CHARACTER   OF    DOGS 

'"PHE  civilisation,  the  manners,  and  the 
morals  of  dog-kind  are  to  a  great  ex- 
tent subordinated  to  those  of  his  ancestral 
master,  man.  This  animal,  in  many  ways 
so  superior,  has  accepted  a  position  of  inferi- 
ority, shares  the  domestic  life,  and  humours 
the  caprices  of  the  tyrant.  But  the  potentate, 
like  the  British  in  India,  pays  small  regard 
to  the  character  of  his  willing  client,  judges 
him  with  listless  glances,  and  condemns  him 
in  a  byword.  Listless  have  been  the  looks 
of  his  admirers,  who  have  exhausted  idle 
terms  of  praise,  and  buried  the  poor  soul 
below  exaggerations.  And  yet  more  idle 
and,  if  possible,  more  unintelligent  has  been 


192         Memories  and  Poi'traits 

the  attitude  of  his  express  detractors  ;  those 
who  are  very  fond  of  dogs  "  but  in  their 
proper  place "  ;  who  say  "  poo'  fellow,  poo' 
fellow,"  and  are  themselves  far  poorer  ;  who 
whet  the  knife  of  the  vivisectionist  or  heat 
his  oven  ;  who  are  not  ashamed  to  admire 
"  the  creature's  instinct "  ;  and  flying  far 
beyond  folly,  have  dared  to  resuscitate  the 
theory  of  animal  machines.  The  "dog's  in- 
stinct" and  the  "  automaton-dog,"  in  this  age 
of  psychology  and  science,  sound  like  strange 
anachronisms.  An  automaton  he  certainly 
is  ;  a  machine  working  independently  of  his 
control,  the  heart  like  the  mill-wheel,  keeping 
all  in  motion,  and  the  consciousness,  like  a 
person  shut  in  the  mill  garret,  enjoying  the 
view  out  of  the  window  and  shaken  by  the 
thunder  of  the  stones  ;  an  automaton  in  one 
corner  of  which  a  living  spirit  is  confined  : 
an  automaton  like  man.  Instinct  again  he 
certainly  possesses.  Inherited  aptitudes  are 
his,  inherited  frailties.  Some  things  he  at 
once  views  and  understands,  as  though  he 
were  awakened  from   a  sleep,  as  though   he 


The  Character  of  Dogs  1 9  3 

came  "  trailing  clouds  of  glory."  But  with 
him,  as  with  man,  the  field  of  instinct  is 
limited  ;  its  utterances  are  obscure  and  occa- 
sional ;  and  about  the  far  larger  part  of  life 
both  the  dog  and  his  master  must  conduct 
their  steps  by  deduction  and  observation. 

The  leading  distinction  between  dog  and 
man,  after  and  perhaps  before  the  different 
duration  of  their  lives,  is  that  the  one  can 
speak  and  that  the  other  cannot.  The  absence 
of  the  power  of  speech  confines  the  dog  in 
the  development  of  his  intellect.  It  hinders 
him  from  many  speculations,  for  words  arc 
the  beginning  of  metaphysic.  At  the  same 
blow  it  saves  him  from  many  superstitions, 
and  his  silence  has  won  for  him  a  higher 
name  for  virtue  than  his  conduct  justifies. 
The  faults  of  the  dog  are  many.  He  is 
vainer  than  man,  singularly  greedy  of  notice, 
singularly  intolerant  of  ridicule,  suspicious 
like  the  deaf,  jealous  to  the  degree  of  frenzy, 
and  radically  devoid  of  truth.  The  day  of 
an    intelligent    small    dog   is    passed   in   the 

manufacture  and   the  laborious  communica- 
o 


1 94         Memories  and  Portraits 

tion  of  falsehood  ;  he  lies  with  his  tail,  he 
lies  with  his  eye,  he  lies  with  his  protesting 
paw ;  and  when  he  rattles  his  dish  or 
scratches  at  the  door  his  purpose  is  other 
than  appears.  But  he  has  some  apology  to 
offer  for  the  vice.  Many  of  the  signs  which 
form  his  dialect  have  come  to  bear  an 
arbitrary  meaning,  clearly  understood  both 
by  his  master  and  himself;  yet  when  a  new 
want  arises  he  must  either  invent  a  new 
vehicle  of  meaning  or  wrest  an  old  one  to 
a  different  purpose  ;  and  this  necessity  fre- 
quently recurring  must  tend  to  lessen  his 
idea  of  the  sanctity  of  symbols.  Meanwhile 
the  dog  is  clear  in  his  own  conscience,  and 
draws,  with  a  human  nicety,  the  distinction 
between  formal  and  essential  truth.  Of  his 
punning  perversions,  his  legitimate  dexterity 
with  symbols,  he  is  even  vain  ;  but  when  he 
has  told  and  been  detected  in  a  lie,  there  is 
not  a  hair  upon  his  body  but  confesses  guilt. 
To  a  dog  of  gentlemanly  feeling  theft  and 
falsehood  are  disgraceful  vices.  The  canine 
like  the  human,  gentleman  demands  in  his 


The  Character  of  Dogs  1 9  5 

misdemeanours  Montaigne's  "y^  ne  sais  qiioi 
de  genereiix."  He  is  never  more  than  half 
ashamed  of  having  barked  or  bitten  ;  and 
for  those  faults  into  which  he  has  been  led 
by  the  desire  to  shine  before  a  lady  of  his 
race,  he  retains,  even  under  physical  correc- 
tion, a  share  of  pride.  But  to  be  caught 
lying,  if  he  understands  it,  instantly  uncurls 
his  fleece. 

Just  as  among  dull  observers  he  preserves 
a  name  for  truth,  the  dog  has  been  credited 
with  modesty.  It  is  amazing  how  the  use  of 
language  blunts  the  faculties  of  man — that 
because  vainglory  finds  no  vent  in  words, 
creatures  supplied  with  eyes  have  been 
unable  to  detect  a  fault  so  gross  and  obvi- 
ous. If  a  small  spoiled  dog  were  suddenly 
fo  be  endowed  with  speech,  he  would  prate 
interminably,  and  still  about  himself;  when 
we  had  friends,  we  should  be  forced  to  lock 
him  in  a  garret ;  and  what  with  his  whining 
jealousies  and  his  foible  for  falsehood,  in  a 
year's  time  he  would  have  gone  far  to  weary 
out  our  love,      I  was  about  to  compare  him 


1 96         Memories  and  Portraits 

to  Sir  Willoughby  Patterne,  but  the  Patternes 
have  a  manlier  sense  of  their  Ovvn  merits  ; 
and  the  parallel,  besides,  is  ready.  Hans 
Christian  Andersen,  as  we  behold  him  in  his 
startling  memoirs,  thrilling  from  top  to  toe 
with  an  excruciating  vanity,  and  scouting 
even  along  the  street  for  shadows  of  offence 
— here  was  the  talking  dog. 

It  is  just  this  rage  for  consideration  that 
has  betrayed  the  dog  into  his  satellite  posi- 
tion as  the  friend  of  man.  The  cat,  an 
animal  of  franker  appetites,  preserves  his 
independence.  But  the  dog,  with  one  eye 
ever  on  the  audience,  has  been  wheedled  into 
slavery,  and  praised  and  patted  into  the 
renunciation  of  his  nature.  Once  he  ceased 
hunting  and  became  man's  plate-licker,  the 
Rubicon  was  crossed.  Thenceforth  he  was 
a  gentleman  of  leisure  ;  and  except  the  few 
whom  we  keep  working,  the  whole  race  grew 
more  and  more  self-conscious,  mannered  and 
affected.  The  number  of  things  that  a  small 
dog  does  naturally  is  strangely  small  En- 
joying better  spirits  and   not  crushed   under 


The  Character  of  Dogs  197 

material  cares,  he  is  far  more  theatrical  than 
average  man.  His  whole  life,  if  he  be  a  dog 
of  any  pretension  to  gallantry,  is  spent  in  a 
vain  show,  and  in  the  hot  pursuit  of  admira- 
tion. Take  out  your  puppy  for  a  walk,  and 
you  will  find  the  little  ball  of  fur  clumsy, 
stupid,  bewildered,  but  natural.  Let  but  a 
{^.v^  months  pass,  and  when  you  repeat  the 
process  you  will  find  nature  buried  in  con- 
vention. He  will  do  nothing  plainly  ;  but 
the  simplest  processes  of  our  material  life 
will  all  be  bent  into  the  forms  of  an  elaborate 
and  mysterious  etiquette.  Instinct,  says  the 
fool,  has  awakened.  But  it  is  not  so.  Some 
dogs — some,  at  the  very  least — if  they  be 
kept  separate  from  others,  remain  quite 
natural  ;  and  these,  when  at  length  they 
meet  with  a  companion  of  experience,  and 
have  the  game  explained  to  them,  distinguish 
themselves  by  the  severity  of  their  devotion 
to  its  rules,  I  wish  I  were  allowed  to  tell  a 
story  which  would  radiantly  illuminate  the 
point  ;  but  men,  like  dogs,  have  an  elaborate 
and  mysterious  etiquette.      It  is  their  bond 


iqS         Memories  and  Portraits 

of  sympathy  that  both    are    the  children  of 
convention. 

The  person,  man  or  dog,  who  has  a  con- 
science is  eternally  condemned  to  some 
degree  of  humbug  ;  the  sense  of  the  law  in 
their  members  fatally  precipitates  either  to- 
wards a  frozen  and  affected  bearing.  And 
the  converse  is  true  ;  and  in  the  elaborate 
and  conscious  manners  of  the  dog,  moral 
opinions  and  the  love  of  the  ideal  stand  con- 
fessed. To  follow  for  ten  minutes  in  the 
street  some  swaggering,  canine  cavalier,  is  to 
receive  a  lesson  in  dramatic  art  and  the  cul- 
tured conduct  of  the  body  ;  in  every  act  and 
gesture  you  see  him  true  to  a  refined  con- 
ception ;  and  the  dullest  cur,  beholding  him, 
pricks  up  his  ear  and  proceeds  to  imitate 
and  parody  that  charming  ease.  For  to  be 
a  high-mannered  and  high-minded  gentle-' 
man,  careless,  affable,  and  gay,  is  the  inborn 
pretension  of  the  dog.  The  large  dog,  so 
much  lazier,  so  much  more  weighed  upon 
with  matter,  so  majestic  in  repose,  so  beauti- 
ful in  effort,  is  born  with  the  dramatic  means 


The  Char actei'' of  Dogs  199 

to  wholly  represent  the  part.  And  it  is 
more  pathetic  and  perhaps  more  instructive 
to  consider  the  small  dog  in  his  conscientious 
and  imperfect  efforts  to  outdo  Sir  Philip 
Sidney.  For  the  ideal  of  the  dog  is  feudal 
and  religious  ;  the  ever-present  polytheism, 
the  whip-bearing  Olympus  of  mankind,  rules 
them  on  the  one  hand  ;  on  the  other,  their 
singular  difference  of  size  and  strength  among 
themselves  effectually  prevents  the  appear- 
ance of  the  democratic  notion.  Or  we  might 
more  exactly  compare  their  society  to  the 
curious  spectacle  presented  by  a  school — 
ushers,  monitors,  and  big  and  little  boys — 
qualified  by  one  circumstance,  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  other  sex.  In  each,  we  should 
observe  a  somewhat  similar  tension  of  man- 
ner, and  somewhat  similar  points  of  honour. 
In  each  the  larger  animal  keeps  a  contempt- 
uous good  humour ;  in  each  the  smaller 
annoys  him  with  wasp-like  impudence,  certain 
of  practical  immunity  ;  in  each  we  shall 
find  a  double  life  producing  double  charac- 
ters,  and   an   excursive   and    noisy    heroism 


200         Memories  a7id  Portraits 

combined  with  a  fair  amount  of  practical 
timidity.  I  liave  kno.vn  dogs,  and  I  have 
known  school  heroes  that,  set  aside  the  fur, 
could  hardly  have  been  told  apart ;  and  if 
we  desire  to  understand  the  chivalry  of  old, 
we  must  turn  to  the  school  playfields  or  the 
dungheap  where  the  dogs  are  trooping. 

Woman,  with  the  dog,  has  been  long  en- 
franchised. Incessant  massacre  of  female 
innocents  has  changed  the  proportions  of  the 
sexes  and  perverted  their  relations.  Thus, 
when  we  regard  the  manners  of  the  dog,  we 
see  a  romantic  and  monogamous  animal,  once 
perhaps  as  delicate  as  the  cat,  at  w^r  with 
impossible  conditions.  Man  has  much  to 
answer  for ;  and  the  part  he  plays  ^s  yet 
more  damnable  and  parlous  than  Corin's  in 
the  eyes  of  Touchstone.  But  his  intervention 
has  at  least  created  an  imperial  situation  for 
the  rare  surviving  ladies.  In  that  society 
they  reign  without  a  rival  :  conscious  queens  ; 
and  in  the  only  instance  of  a  canine  wife- 
beater  that  has  ever  fallen  under  my  notice, 
the  criminal  was  somewha':  excused   by  the 


The  Character  of  Dogs          201 

circumstances  of  his  story.  He  is  a  Jittle, 
very  alert,  well-bred,  intelligent  Skye,  as  black 
as  a  hat,  with  a  wet  bramble  for  a  nose  and 
two  cairngorms  for  eyes.  To  the  human 
observer,  he  is  decidedly  well-looking  ;  but 
to  the  ladies  of  his  race  he  seems  abhorrent. 
A  thorough  elaborate  gentleman,  of  the 
plume  and  sword-knot  order,  he  was  born 
with  a  nice  sense  of  gallantry  to  women. 
He  took  at  their  hands  the  most  outrageous 
treatment  ;  I  have  heard  him  bleating  like  a 
sheep,  I  have  seen  him  streaming  blood,  and 
his  ear  tattered  like  a  regimental  banner ; 
and  yet  he  would  scorn  to  make  reprisals. 
Nay  more,  when  a  human  lady  upraised  the 
contumelious  whip  against  the  very  dame  who 
had  been  so  cruelly  misusing  him,  my  little 
great-heart  gave  but  one  hoarse  cry  and  fell 
upon  the  tyrant  tooth  and  nail.  This  is  the 
tale  of  a  soul's  tragedy.  After  three  years 
of  unavailing  chivalry,  he  suddenly,  in  one 
hour,  threw  off  the  yoke  of  obligation  ;  had 
he  been  Shakespeare  he  would  then  have 
written  Troilns  and  Cressida   to  brand   the 


202         Meinories  and  Portraits 

offending  sex  ;  but  being  only  a  little  dog, 
he  began  to  bite  them.  The  surprise  of  the 
ladies  whom  he  attacked  indicated  the  mon- 
strosity of  his  offence  ;  but  he  had  fairly 
beaten  off  his  better  angel,  fairly  committed 
moral  suicide  ;  for  almost  in  the  same  hour, 
throwing  aside  the  last  rags  of  decency,  he 
proceeded  to  attack  the  aged  also.  The  fact 
is  worth  remark,  showing,  as  it  does,  that 
ethical  laws  are  common  both  to  dogs  and 
men  ;  and  that  with  both  a  single  deliberate 
violation  of  the  conscience  loosens  all.  "But 
while  the  lamp  holds  on  to  burn,"  says  the 
paraphrase,  "  the  greatest  sinner  may  return." 
I  have  been  cheered  to  see  symptoms  of 
effectual  penitence  in  my  sweet  ruffian  ;  and 
by  the  handling  that  he  accepted  uncom- 
plainingly the  other  day  from  an  indignant 
fair  one,  I  begin  to  hope  the  period  of  Stunn 
tend  Drang  is  closed. 

All  these  little  gentlemen  arc  subtle  casu- 
ists. The  duty  to  the  female  dog  is  plain;  but 
where  competing  duties  rise,  down  they  will 
sit  and  study  them  out,  like  Jesuit  confessors. 


The  Character  of  Dogs  203 

I  knew  another  little  Skye,  somewhat  plain 
in  nianner  and  appearance,  but  a  creature 
compact  of  amiabih'ty  and  solid  wisdom. 
His  family  going  abroad  for  a  winter,  he  was 
received  for  that  period  by  an  uncle  in  the 
same  city.  The  winter  over,  his  own  family 
home  again,  and  his  own  house  (of  which  he 
was  very  proud)  reopened,  he  found  himself 
in  a  dilemma  between  two  conflicting  duties 
of  loyalty  and  gratitude.  His  old  friends 
were  not  to  be  neglected,  but  it  seemed 
hardly  decent  to  desert  the  new.  This  was 
how  he  solved  the  problem.  Every  morning, 
as  soon  as  the  door  was  opened,  off  posted 
Coolin  to  his  uncle's,  visited  the  children 
in  the  nursery,  saluted  the  whole  family,  and 
was  back  at  home  in  time  for  breakfast  and 
his  bit  of  fish.  Nor  was  this  done  without  a 
sacrifice  on  his  part,  sharply  felt  ;  for  he  had 
to  forego  the  particular  honour  and  jewel  of 
his  day — his  morning's  walk  with  my  father. 
And,  perhaps  from  this  cause,  he  gradually 
wearied  of  and  relaxed  the  practice,  and  at 
length  returned  entirely  to  his  ancient  habits. 


2  04         Memories  and  Portraits 

l^ut  the  same  decision  served  him  in  another 
and  more  distressing  case  of  divided  duty, 
which  happened  not  long  after.  He  was  not 
at  all  a  kitchen  dog,  but  the  cook  had  nursed 
him  with  unusual  kindness  during  the  dis- 
temper ;  and  though  he  did  not  adore  her  as 
he  adored  my  father — although  (born  snob) 
he  was  critically  conscious  of  her  position  as 
"  only  a  servant  " — he  still  cherished  for  her 
a  special  gratitude.  Well,  the  cook  left,  and 
retired  some  streets  away  to  lodgings  of  her 
own  ;  and  there  was  Coolin  in  precisely  the 
same  situation  with  any  3''oung  gentleman 
who  has  had  the  inestimable  benefit  of  a 
faithful  nurse.  The  canine  conscience  did 
not  solve  the  problem  with  a  pound  of  tea  at 
Christmas.  No  longer  content  to  pay  a  fly- 
ing visit,  it  was  the  whole  forenoon  that  he 
dedicated  to  his  solitary  friend.  And  so, 
day  by  da}^,  he  continued  to  comfort  her 
solitude  until  (for  some  reason  which  I  could 
never  understand  and  cannot  approve)  he 
was  kept  locked  up  to  break  him  of  the 
graceful  habit.      Here,  it  is  not  the  similarity, 


TJie  Character  of  Dogs  205 

it  is  the  difference,  that  is  worthy  of  remark  ; 
the  clearly  marked  degrees  of  gratitude  and 
the  proportional  duration  of  his  visits.  Any- 
thing further  removed  from  instinct  it  were 
hard  to  fancy  ;  and  one  is  even  stirred  to  a 
certain  impatience  with  a  character  so  desti- 
tute of  spontaneity,  so  passionless  in  justice, 
and  so  priggishly  obedient  to  the  voice  of 
reason. 

There  are  not  many  dogs  like  this  good 
Coolin,  and  not  many  people.  But  the  type 
is  one  well  marked,  both  in  the  human  and 
the  canine  family.  Gallantry  was  not  his 
aim,  but  a  solid  and  somewhat  oppressive 
respectability.  He  was  a  sworn  foe  to  the 
unusual  and  the  conspicuous,  a  praiser  of  the 
golden  mean,  a  kind  of  city  uncle  modified 
by  Cheeryble.  And  as  he  was  precise  and 
conscientious  in  all  the  steps  of  his  own 
blameless  course,  he .  looked  for  the  same 
precision  and  an  even  greater  gravity  in  the 
bearing  of  his  deity,  my  father.  It  was  no 
sinecure  to  be  Coolin's  idol  :  he  was  exacting 
like   a   rigid   parent  ;    and    at   every  sign   of 


2o6         Memories  and  Portraits 

levity  in  the  man  whom  he  respected,  he 
announced  loudly  the  death  of  virtue  and 
the  proximate  fall  of  the  pillars  of  the 
earth, 

I  have  called  him  a  snob ;  but  all  dogs  arc 
so,  though  in  varying  degrees.  It  is  hard  to 
follow  their  snobbery  among  themselves;  for 
though  I  think  we  can  perceive  distinctions  of 
rank,  we  cannot  grasp  what  is  the  criterion. 
Thus  in  Edinburgh,  in  a  good  part  of  the 
town,  there  were  several  distinct  societies  or 
clubs  that  met  in  the  morning  to — the  phrase 
is  technical — to  "  rake  the  backets  "  in  a 
troop.  A  friend  of  mine,  the  master  of 
three  dogs,  was  one  day  surprised  to  observe 
that  they  had  left  one  club  and  joined 
another  ;  but  whether  it  was  a  rise  or  a  fall, 
and  the  result  of  an  invitation  or  an  ex- 
pulsion, was  more  than  he  could  guess. 
And  this  illustrates  pointedly  our  ignorance 
of  the  real  life  of  dogs,  their  social  ambitions 
and  their  social  hierarchies.  At  least,  in 
their  dealings  with  men  they  are  not  only 
conscious   of  sex,    but   of  the   difference  of 


The  Character  of  Dogs  207 

station.  And  that  in  the  most  snobbish 
manner  ;  for  the  poor  man's  dog  is  not 
offended  by  the  notice  of  the  rich,  and  keeps 
all  his  ugly  feeling  for  those  poorer  or  more 
ragged  than  his  master.  And  again,  for 
every  station  they  have  an  ideal  of  be- 
haviour, to  which  the  master,  under  pain  of 
derogation,  will  do  wisely  to  conform.  How 
olten  has  not  a  cold  glance  of  an  eye  in- 
formed me  that  my  dog  was  disappointed  ; 
and  hovv  much  more  gladly  would  he  not 
have  taken  a  beating  than  to  be  thus 
wounded  in  the  seat  of  piety  ! 

I  knew  one  disrespectable  dog.  He  was 
far  liker  a  cat ;  cared  little  or  nothing  for 
men,  with  whom  he  merely  coexisted  as  we 
do  with  cattle,  and  was  entirely  devoted  to 
the  art  of  poaching.  A  house  would  not 
hold  him,  and  to  live  in  a  town  was  what  he 
refused.  He  led,  I  believe,  a  life  of  troubled 
but  genuine  pleasure,  and  perished  beyond 
all  question  in  a  trap.  But  this  was  an  ex- 
ception, a  marked  reversion  to  the  ancestral 
type  ;    like   the    hairy  human   infant.      The 


2o8         Memories  and  Portraits 

true  dog  of  the  nineteenth  century,  to  judge 
by  the  remainder  of  my  fairly  large  acquaint- 
ance, is  in  love  with  respectability.  A  street- 
dog  was  once  adopted  by  a  lady.  While  still 
an  Arab,  he  had  done  as  Arabs  do,  gam- 
bolling in  the  mud,  charging  into  butchers' 
stalls,  a  cat-hunter,  a  sturdy  beggar,  a 
common  rogue  and  vagabond  ;  but  with  his 
rise  into  society  he  laid  aside  these  incon- 
sistent pleasures.  He  stole  no  more,  he 
hunted  no  more  cats  ;  and  conscious  of  his 
collar,  he  ignored  his  old  companions.  Yet 
the  canine  upper  class  was  never  brought  to 
recognise  the  upstart,  and  from  that  hour, 
except  for  human  countenance,  he  was  alone. 
Friendless,  shorn  of  his  sports  and  the  habits 
of  a  lifetime,  he  still  lived  in  a  glory  of 
happiness,  content  with  his  acquired  respect- 
ability, and  with  no  care  but  to  support  it 
solemnly.  Are  we  to  condemn  or  praise 
this  self-made  dog  ?  We  praise  his  human 
brother.  And  thus  to  conquer  vicious  habits 
is  as  rare  with  dogs  as  with  men.  With  the 
more  part,   for   all    their   scruple -mongeiing 


The  Character  of  Dogs  209 

and  moral  thought,  the  vices  that  are  born 
with  them  remain  invincible  throuf:;hout  ; 
and  they  live  all  their  years,  glorying  in 
their  virtues,  but  still  the  slaves  of  their 
defects.  Thus  the  sage  Coolin  was  a  thief 
to  the  last ;  among  a  thousand  peccadilloes, 
a  whole  goose  and  a  whole  cold  leg  of 
mutton  lay  upon  his  conscience ;  but  Woggs,^ 
whose  soul's  shipwreck  in  the  matter  of  gal- 
lantry I  have  recounted  above,  has  only  twice 
been  known  to  steal,  and  has  often  nobly 
conquered  the  temptation.  The  eighth  is 
his  favourite  commandment.  There  is  some- 
thing painfully  human  in  these  unequal  vir- 
tues and  mortal  frailties  of  the  best.  Still 
more  painful  is  the  bearing  of  those  "stam- 
mering professors  "  in  the  house  of  sickness 
and  under  the  terror  of  death.  It  is  beyond  a 
doubt  to  me  that,  somehow  or  other,  the  dog 
connects  together,  or  confounds,  the  uneasi- 

^  Walter,  Watty,  Woggy,  Woggs,  Wogg,  and  lastly  Bogue; 
under  which  last  name  he  fell  in  battle  some  twelve  months 
ago.  Glory  was  his  aim  and  he  attained  it ;  for  his  icon,  by 
the  hand  of  Caldecott,  now  lies  among  the  treasures  of  the 
nation. 

P 


210         Memories  and  Portraits 

ness  of  sickness  and  the  consciousness  of 
guilt.  To  the  pains  of  the  body  he  often 
adds  the  tortures  of  the  conscience ;  and  at 
these  times  his  haggard  protestations  form, 
in  regard  to  the  human  deathbed,  a  dreadful 
parody  or  parallel. 

I  once  supposed  that  I  had  found  an 
inverse  relation  between  the  double  etiquette 
which  dogs  obey  ;  and  that  those  who  were 
most  addicted  to  the  showy  street  life  among 
other  dogs  were  less  careful  in  the  practice 
of  home  virtues  for  the  tyrant  man.  But  the 
female  dog,  that  mass  of  carneying  affecta- 
tions, shines  equally  in  either  sphere  ;  rules 
her  rough  posse  of  attendant  swains  with 
unwearying  tact  and  gusto  ;  and  with  her 
master  and  mistress  pushes  the  arts  of  in- 
sinuation to  their  crowning  point.  The 
attention  of  man  and  the  regard  of  other 
dogs  flatter  (it  would  thus  appear)  the  same 
sensibility  ;  but  perhaps,  if  we  could  read  the 
canine  heart,  they  would  be  found  to  flatter 
it  in  very  different  degrees.  Dogs  live  with 
man  as  courtiers  round  a  monarch,  steeped  in 


The  Characte}'-  of  Dogs  2 1 1 

the  flattery  of  his  notice  and  enriched  with 
sinecures.  To  push  their  favour  in  this 
world  of  pickings  and  caresses  is,  perhaps, 
the  business  of  their  Hves  ;  and  their  joys 
may  lie  outside.  I  am  in  despair  at  our 
persistent  ignorance.  I  read  in  the  lives  of 
our  companions  the  same  processes  of  reason, 
the  same  antique  and  fatal  conflicts  of  the 
right  against  the  wrong,  and  of  unbitted 
nature  with  too  rigid  custom  ;  I  see  them 
with  our  weaknesses,  vain,  false,  inconstant 
against  appetite,  and  with  our  one  stalk  of 
virtue,  devoted  to  the  dream  of  an  ideal ; 
and  yet,  as  they  hurry  by  me  on  the  street 
with  tail  in  air,  or  come  singly  to  solicit  my 
regard,  I  must  own  the  secret  purport  of 
their  lives  is  still  inscrutable  to  man.  Is 
man  the  friend,  or  is  he  the  patron  only  ? 
Have  they  indeed  forgotten  nature's  voice  ? 
or  are  those  moments  snatched  from  courtier- 
ship  when  they  touch  noses  with  the  tinker's 
mongrel,  the  brief  reward  and  pleasure  of 
their  artificial  lives  ?  Doubtless,  when  man 
shares  with  his  dog  the  toils  of  a  profession 


2 1 2         Memories  and  Portraits 

and  the  pleasures  of  an  art,  as  with  the 
shepherd  or  the  poacher,  the  affection  warms 
and  strengthens  till  it  fills  the  soyl.  But 
doubtless,  also,  the  masters  are,  in  many 
cases,  the  object  of  a  merely  interested 
cultus,  sitting  aloft  like  Louis  Ouatorze, 
giving  and  receiving  flattery  and  favour ; 
and  the  dogs,  like  the  majority  of  men,  have 
but  foregone  their  true  existence  and  become 
the  dupes  of  their  ambitioa 


XIII 

*'A  PENNY  PLAIN 
AND  TWOPENCE  COLOURED" 

"T^HESE  words  will  be  familiar  to  al! 
students  of  Skelt's  Juvenile  Drama. 
That  national  monument,  after  having 
changed  its  name  to  Park's,  to  Webb's,  to 
Redington's,  and  last  of  all  to  Pollock's,  has 
now  become,  for  the  most  part,  a  memory. 
Some  of  its  pillars,  like  Stonehenge,  are  still 
afoot,  the  rest  clean  vanished.  It  may  be 
the  Museum  numbers  a  full  set  ;  and  ]\Ir. 
lonides  perhaps,  or  else  her  gracious  Majesty, 
may  boast  their  great  collections ;  but  to 
the  plain  private  person  they  are  become, 
like  Raphaels,  unattainable.  I  have,  at 
different   times,  possessed  Aladdin^  TJic  Red 


2 1 4         Memories  and  Po7^traits 

Rover,  The  Blind  Boy,  The  Old  Oak  Chest, 
The  JVood  DcBJuon,  Jack  SJieppard,  The 
Miller  and  his  Men,  Der  Freischiitz,  The 
Smuggler,  The  Forest  of  Bondy,  Robin  Hood, 
The  Watcrnia7i,  Riehard  I.,  My  Poll  and  my 
Partner  Joe,  The  Inehcape  Bell  (imperfect), 
and  Three  -  Fingered  Jack,  the  Terror  oj 
Jamaica ;  and  I  have  assisted  others  in  the 
illumination  of  TJie  Maid  of  the  Inn  and 
The  Battle  of  Waterloo.  In  this  roll-call  ol 
stirring  names  3'ou  read  the  evidences  of  a 
happy  childhood  ;  and  though  not  half  ol 
them  are  still  to  be  procured  of  any  living 
stationer,  in  the  mind  of  their  once  happy 
owner  all  survive,  kaleidoscopes  of  changing 
pictures,  echoes  of  the  past. 

There  stands,  I  fancy,  to  this  day  (but 
now  how  fallen  !)  a  certain  stationer's  shop 
at  a  corner  of  the  wide  thoroughfare  that 
joins  the  city  of  my  childhood  with  the  sea. 
When,  upon  any  Saturday,  we  made  a  party 
to  behold  the  ships,  we  passed  that  corner ; 
and  since  in  those  days  I  loved  a  ship  as  a 
man   loves    Burgundy  or   daybreak,  this   of 


A  Penny  Plain,  2d.  Coloured    215 

itself  had  been  enough  to  hallow  it.  But 
there  was  more  than  that.  In  the  Leith 
Walk  window,  all  the  year  round,  there 
stood  displayed  a  theatre  in  working  order, 
with  a  "  forest  set,"  a  "  combat,"  and  a  few 
"robbers  carousing"  in  the  slides;  and  below 
and  about,  dearer  tenfold  to  me  !  the  plays 
themselves,  those  budgets  of  romance,  lay 
tumbled  one  upon  another.  Long  and  often 
have  I  lingered  there  with  empty  pockets. 
One  figure,  we  shall  say,  was  visible  in  the 
first  plate  of  characters,  bearded,  pistol  in 
hand,  or  drawing  to  his  ear  the  clothyard 
arrow ;  I  would  spell  the  name :  was  it 
Macaire,  or  Long  Tom  Coffin,  or  Grindoff, 
2d  dress  ?  O,  how  I  would  long  to  see 
the  rest !  how — if  the  name  by  chance  were 
hidden  —  I  would  wonder  in  what  play  he 
figured,  and  what  immortal  legend  justified 
his  attitude  and  strange  apparel !  And  then 
to  go  within,  to  announce  yourself  as  an 
intending  purchaser,  and,  closely  watched, 
be  suffered  to  undo  those  bundles  and 
breathlessly  devour  those  pages  of  gesticu-- 


2 1 6         Memories  and  Portraits 

lating  villains,  epileptic  combats,  bosky 
forests,  palaces  and  war  -  ships,  frowning 
fortresses  and  prison  vaults — it  was  a  giddy 
joy.  That  shop,  which  was  dark  and  smelt 
of  Bibles,  was  a  loadstone  rock  for  all  that 
bore  the  name  of  boy.  They  could  not  pass 
it  by,  nor,  having  entered,  leave  it.  It  was 
a  place  besieged  ;  the  shopmen,  like  the 
Jews  rebuilding  Salem,  had  a  double  task. 
They  kept  us  at  the  stick's  end,  frowned  us 
down,  snatched  each  play  out  of  our  hand 
ere  we  were  trusted  with  another ;  and, 
increditable  as  it  may  sound,  used  to  de- 
mand of  us  upon  our  entrance,  like  banditti, 
if  we  came  with  money  or  with  empty  hand. 
Old  Mr.  Smith  himself,  worn  out  with  my 
eternal  vacillation,  once  swept  the  treasures 
from  before  me,  with  the  cry  :  "  I  do  not 
believe,  child,  that  you  are  an  intending 
purchaser  at  all!"  These  were  the  dragons 
of  the  garden  ;  but  for  such  joys  of  paradise 
we  could  have  faced  the  Terror  of  Jamaica 
himself  Every  sheet  we  fingered  was  an- 
other lightning  glance  into  obscure,  delicious 


A  Penny  Plain,  2d.  Coloured    217 

story  ;  it  was  like  wallowing  in  the  raw  stuff 
of  story-books.  I  know  nothing  to  compare 
with  it  save  now  and  then  in  dreams,  when 
I  am  privileged  to  read  in  certain  unwrit 
stories  of  adventure,  from  which  I  awake 
to  find  the  world  all  vanity.  The  crux  of 
Buridan's  donkey  was  as  nothing  to  the 
uncertainty  of  the  boy  as  he  handled  and 
lingered  and  doated  on  these  bundles  of 
delight ;  there  was  a  physical  pleasure  in 
the  sight  and  touch  of  them  which  he  would 
jealously  prolong ;  and  when  at  length  the 
deed  was  done,  the  play  selected,  and  the 
impatient  shopman  had  brushed  the  rest 
into  the  gray  portfolio,  and  the  boy  was 
forth  again,  a  little  late  for  dinner,  the  lamps 
springing  into  light  in  the  blue  winter's  even, 
and  The  Miller^  or  The  Rover,  or  some 
kindred  drama  clutched  against  his  side — 
on  what  gay  feet  he  ran,  and  how  he  laughed 
aloud  in  exultation  !  I  can  hear  that  laughter 
still.  Out  of  all  the  years  of  my  life,  I  can 
recall  but  one  home-coming  to  compare  with 
these,  and    that  was   on    the   night  when  I 


2 1 8         Afemories  and  Portraits 

brauglit  back  with  me  the  Arabian  Enter' 
tainments  in  the  fat,  old,  double -coUimned 
volume  with  the  prints.  I  was  just  well 
into  the  story  of  the  Hunchback,  I  remember, 
when  my  clergyman-grandfather  (a  man  we 
counted  pretty  stiff)  came  in  behind  me.  I 
grew  blind  with  terror.  But  instead  of 
ordering  the  book  away,  he  said  he  envied 
me.      Ah,  well  he  might ! 

The  purchase  and  the  first  half-hour  at 
home,  that  was  the  summit.  Thenceforth 
the  interest  declined  by  little  and  little.  The 
fable,  as  set  forth  in  the  play-book,  proved 
to  be  not  worthy  of  the  scenes  and  charac- 
ters :  what  fable  would  not  ?  Such  pas- 
sages as :  "Scene  6.  The  Hermitage.  Night 
set  scene.  Place  back  of  scene  i.  No.  2,  at 
back  of  stage  and  hermitage.  Fig.  2,  out  of 
set  piece,  R.  H.  in  a  slanting  direction  " — 
such  passages,  I  say,  though  very  practical, 
are  hardly  to  be  called  good  reading.  In- 
deed, as  literature,  these  dramas  did  not 
much  appeal  to  me.  I  forget  the  very 
outline    of  the   plots.       Of    The   Blind  Boy, 


A  Penny  Plain,  2d.  Coloured    2 1 9 

beyond  the  fact  that  he  was  a  most  injured 
prince  and  once,  I  think,  abducted,  I  know 
nothing.  And  The  Old  Oak  Chest,  what 
was  it  all  about?  that  proscript  (ist  dress), 
that  prodigious  number  of  banditti,  that  old 
woman  with  the  broom,  and  the  magnificent 
kitchen  in  the  third  act  (was  it  in  the  third  ?) 
— they  are  all  fallen  in  a  deliquium,  swim 
faintly  in  my  brain,  and  mix  and  vanish. 

I  cannot  deny  that  joy  attended  the 
illumination  ;  nor  can  I  quite  forgive  that 
child  who,  wilfully  foregoing  pleasure,  stoops 
to  "  twopence  coloured."  With  crimson  lake 
(hark  to  the  sound  of  it — crimson  lake ! — 
the  horns  of  elf-land  are  not  richer  on  the 
ear) — with  crimson  lake  and  Prussian  blue 
a  certain  purple  is  to  be  compounded  which, 
for  cloaks  especially,  Titian  could  not  equal. 
The  latter  colour  with  gamboge,  a  hated 
name  although  an  exquisite  pigment,  supplied 
a  gieen  of  such  a  savoury  greenness  that  to- 
day my  heart  regrets  it.  Nor  can  I  recall 
without  a  tender  weakness  the  very  aspect 
of  the  water  where  I  dipped  my  brush.      Yes, 


2  20         Memories  and  Portraits 

there  was  pleasure  in  the  painting.  But  when 
all  was  painted,  it  is  needless  to  deny  it» 
all  was  spoiled.  You  might,  indeed,  set  up  a 
scene  or  two  to  look  at ;  but  to  cut  the  figures 
out  was  simply  sacrilege  ;  nor  could  any  child 
twice  court  the  tedium,  the  woriy,  and.  the 
long-drawn  disenchantment  of  an  actual  per- 
formance. Two  days  after  the  purchase  the 
honey  had  been  sucked.  Parents  used  to 
complain  ;  they  thought  I  wearied  of  my 
play.  It  was  not  so :  no  more  than  a 
person  can  be  said  to  have  wearied  of 
his  dinner  when  he  leaves  the  bones  and 
dishes  ;  I  had  got  the  marrow  of  it  and  said 
grace. 

Then  was  the  time  to  turn  to  the  back  of  the 
play-book  and  to  study  that  enticing  double 
file  of  names,  where  poetry,  for  the  true  child 
of  Skelt,  reigned  happy  and  glorious  like 
her  Majesty  the  Queen.  Much  as  I  have 
travelled  in  these  realms  of  gold,  I  have  yet 
seen,  upon  that  map  or  abstract,  names  of 
El  Dorados  that  still  haunt  the  ear  o{ 
memory,  and  arc  still  but  names.      The  Float* 


A  Penny  Plain,  id.  Coloured    221 

ing  Beacon — why  was  that  denied  nie  ?  or 
T/ic  Wreck  Ashore?  Sixteen- String  Jack, 
whom  I  did  not  even  guess  to  be  a  highway- 
man, troubled  me  awake  and  haunted  my 
slumbers  ;  and  there  is  one  sequence  of  three 
from  that  enchanted  calender  that  I  still  at 
times  recall,  like  a  loved  verse  of  poetry : 
Lodoiska,  Silver  Palace,  Echo  of  Westminster 
Bridge.  Names,  bare  names,  are  surely 
more  to  children  than  we  poor,  grown-up, 
obliterated  fools  remember. 

The  name  of  Skelt  itself  has  always 
seemed  a  part  and  parcel  of  the  charm  of 
his  productions.  It  may  be  different  with  the 
rose,  but  the  attraction  of  this  paper  drama 
sensibly  declined  when  Webb  had  crept  into 
the  rubric:  a  poor  cuckoo,  flaunting  in  Skelt's 
nest.  And  now  we  have  reached  Pollock, 
sounding  deeper  gulfs.  Indeed,  this  name  of 
Skelt  appears  so  stagey  and  piratic,  that  I 
will  adopt  it  boldly  to  design  these  qualities. 
Skeltery,  then,  is  a  quality  of  much  art.  It 
is  even  to  be  found,  with  reverence  be  it  said, 
among  the  works  of  nature.      The  stagey   is 


2  2  2         Memories  and  Portraits 

its  generic  name  ;  but  it  is  an  old,  insular, 
home-bred  staginess;  not  French,  domestically 
British  ;  not  of  to-day,  but  smacking  of  O. 
Smith,  Fitzball,  and  the  great  age  of  melo- 
drama: a  peculiar  fragrance  haunting  it;  utter- 
ing its  unimportant  message  in  a  tone  of  voice 
that  has  the  charm  of  fresh  antiquity.  I  will 
not  insist  upon  the  art  of  Skelt's  purveyors. 
These  w^onderful  characters  that  once  so 
thrilled  our  soul  with  their  bold  attitude, 
array  of  deadly  engines  and  incomparable 
costume,  to-day  look  somewhat  pallidly  ;  the 
extreme  hard  favour  of  the  heroine  strikes 
me,  I  had  almost  said  with  pain  ;  the  villain's 
scowl  no  longer  thrills  me  like  a  trumpet ; 
and  the  scenes  themselves,  those  once  un- 
paralleled landscapes,  seem  the  efforts  of  a 
prentice  hand.  So  much  of  fault  we  find  ; 
but  on  the  other  side  the  impartial  critic 
rejoices  to  remark  the  presence  of  a  great 
unity  of  gusto ;  of  those  direct  clap-trap 
appeals,  which  a  man  is  dead  and  buriable 
when  he  fails  to  answer ;  of  the  footlight 
glamour, the  ready-made,  bare-faced,  transpon- 


A  Pen7iy  Plam,  2d.  Coloured    223 

tine  picturesque,  a  thing  not  one  with  cold 
reaHty,  but  how  much  dearer  to  the  mind  ! 

The  scenery  of  Skeltdom  —  or,  shall  we 
say,  the  kingdom  of  Transpontus  ? — had  a 
prevailing  character.  Whether  it  set  forth 
Poland  as  in  The  Blind  Boy,  or  Bohemia 
with  Tlie  Miller  and  his  Men,  or  Italy  with 
The  Old  Oak  Chest,  still  it  was  Transpontus. 
A  botanist  could  tell  it  by  the  plants.  The 
hollyhock  was  all  pervasive,  running  wild  in 
deserts ;  the  dock  was  common,  and  the 
bending  reed  ;  and  overshadowing  these  were 
poplar,  palm,  potato  tree,  and  Quercus  Skeltica 
— brave  growths.  The  caves  were  all  em- 
bowelled  in  the  Surreyside  formation  ;  the 
soil  was  all  betrodden  by  the  light  pump  of 
T.  P.  Cooke.  Skelt,  to  be  sure,  had  yet 
another,  an  oriental  string :  he  held  the 
gorgeous  east  in  fee  ;  and  in  the  new  quarter 
of  Hyeres,  say,  in  the  garden  of  the  Hotel 
des  lies  d'Or,  you  may  behold  these  blessed 
visions  realised.  But  on  these  I  will  not 
dwell  ;  they  were  an  outwork  ;  it  was  in  the 
occidental  scenery  that  Skelt  was  all  himself 


2  24         Memories  and  Poi'tr aits 

It  had  a  stronor  flavour  of  England  ;  it  was  a 
sort  of  indigestion  of  England  and  drop-scenes, 
and  I  am  bound  to  say  was  charming.  How 
the  roads  wander,  how  the  castle  sits  upon 
the  hill,  how  the  sun  eradiates  from  behind 
the  cloud,  and  how  the  congregated  clouds 
themselves  uproll,  as  stiff  as  bolsters  !  Here 
is  the  cottage  interior,  the  usual  first  flat,  with 
the  cloak  upon  the  nail,  the  rosaries  of  onions, 
the  gun  and  powder-horn  and  corner-cup- 
board ;  here  is  the  inn  (this  drama  must  be 
nautical,  I  foresee  Captain  Luff  and  Bold 
Bob  Bowsprit)  with  the  red  curtain,  pipes, 
spittoons,  and  eight-day  clock  ;  and  there 
again  is  that  impressive  dungeon  with  the 
chains,  which  was  so  dull  to  colour.  England, 
the  hedgerow  elms,  the  thin  brick  houses, 
windmills,  glimpses  of  the  navigable  Thames 
— England,  when  at  last  I  came  to  visit  it, 
was  only  Skelt  made  evident  :  to  cross  the 
border  was,  for  the  Scotsman,  to  come  home 
to  Skelt ;  there  was  the  inn-sign  and  there 
the  horse-trough,  all  foreshadowed  in  the 
faithful  Skelt.      If,  at  the  ripe  age  of  fourteen 


A  Penny  Plain,  2d.  Coloiwed    225 

years,  I  bought  a  certain  cudgel,  got  a  friend 
to  load  it,  and  thenceforward  walked  the 
tame  ways  of  the  earth  my  own  ideal,  radiat- 
ing pure  romance — still  I  was  but  a  puppet 
in  the  hand  of  Skelt  ;  the  original  of  that 
regretted  bludgeon,  and  surely  the  antitype 
of  all  the  bludgeon  kind,  greatly  improved 
from  Cruikshank,  had  adorned  the  hand  of 
Jonathan  Wild,  pi.  i.  "This  is  mastering 
me,"  as  Whitman  cries,  upon  some  lesser 
provocation.  What  am  I  ?  what  are  life,  art, 
letters,  the  world,  but  what  my  Skelt  has 
made  them  ?  He  stamped  himself  upon  my 
immaturity.  The  world  was  plain  before  I 
knew  him,  a  poor  penny  world  ;  but  soon  it 
was  all  coloured  with  romance.  If  I  go  to  the 
theatre  to  see  a  good  old  melodrama,  'tis  but 
Skelt  a  little  faded.  If  I  visit  a  bold  scene 
in  nature,  Skelt  would  have  been  bolder  ; 
there  had  been  certainly  a  castle  on  that 
mountain,  and  the  hollow  tree — that  set  piece 
— I  seem  to  miss  it  in  the  foreground.  In- 
deed, out  of  this  cut-and-dry,  dull,  swagger- 
ing, obtrusive  and  infantile  art,  I  seem  to 
Q 


226         Memories  and  Portraits 

have  learned  the  very  spirit  of  my  life's 
enjoyment ;  met  there  the  shadows  of  the 
characters  I  was  to  read  about  and  love  in  a 
late  future  ;  got  the  romance  of  Dcr  Freis- 
chiitz  long  ere  I  was  to  hear  of  Weber  or 
the  mighty  Formes  ;  acquired  a  gallery  of 
scenes  and  characters  with  which,  in  the 
silent  theatre  of  the  brain,  I  might  enact  all 
novels  and  romances  ;  and  took  from  these 
rude  cuts  an  enduring  and  transforming 
pleasure.      Reader — and  yourself? 

A  word  of  moral  :  it  appears  that  B.  Pol- 
lock, late  J.  Redington,  No.  y 'ij  Hoxton 
Street,  not  only  publishes  twenty-three  of 
these  old  stage  favourites,  but  owns  the 
necessary  plates  and  displays  a  modest  readi- 
ness to  issue  other  thirty-three.  If  you  love 
art,  folly,  or  the  bright  eyes  of  children,  speed 
to  Pollock's,  or  to  Clarke's  of  Garrick  Street. 
In  Pollock's  list  of  publicanda  I  perceive  a 
pair  of  my  ancient  aspirations  :  Wj-eck  Ashore 
and  Sixteen-String  Jack ;  and  I  cherish  the 
belief  that  when  these  shall  see  once  more 
the   lij^ht  of  (lay,    H.    Pollock  will   remember 


A  Penny  Plain,  2d.  Colotired    227 

this  apologist.  But,  indeed,  I  have  a  dream 
at  times  that  is  not  all  a  dream.  I  seem  to 
myself  to  wander  in  a  ghostly  street — E.  W., 
I  think,  the  postal  district — close  below  the 
fool's-cap  of  St.  Paul's,  and  yet  within  easy 
hearing  of  the  echo  of  the  Abbey  bridge. 
There  in  a  dim  shop,  low  in  the  roof  and 
smelling  strong  of  glue  and  footlights,  I  find 
myself  in  quaking  treaty  with  great  Skelt  him- 
self, the  aboriginal,  all  dusty  from  the  tomb.  I 
buy,  with  what  a  choking  heart — I  buy  them 
all,  all  but  the  pantomimes  ;  I  pay  my  mental 
money,  and  go  forth  ;  and  lo  1  the  packets 
are  dust. 


XIV 

A   GOSSIP   ON   A   NOVEL 
OF    DUMAS'S 

'T^HE  books  that  we  re-read  the  oftenest  are 
not  always  those  that  we  admire  the 
most  ;  we  choose  and  we  revisit  them  for 
many  and  various  reasons,  as  we  choose  and 
revisit  human  friends.  One  or  two  of 
Scott's  novels,  Shakespeare,  Moliere,  Mon- 
taigne, TJie  Egoist,  and  the  Vicomte  de  Brage- 
ionuc,  form  the  inner  circle  of  my  intimates. 
Behind  these  comes  a  good  troop  of  dear 
acquaintances  ;  Tlie  Pilgiiuis  Progj^ess  in  the 
front  rank.  The  Bible  in  Spain  not  far  behind. 
There  are  besides  a  certain  number  that  look 
at  me  with  reproach  as  I  pass  them  by  on 
my  shelves  :  books  that  I  once  thumbed  and 


A  Gossip  oil  a  Novel  of  Diunass  229 

studied  :  houses  which  were  once  like  home 
to  me,  but  where  I  now  rarely  visit.  I  am 
on  these  sad  terms  (and  blush  to  confess  it) 
with  Wordsworth,  Horace,  Burns  and  Hazlitt. 
Last  of  all,  there  is  the  class  of  book  that 
has  its  hour  of  brilliancy— glows,  sings, 
charms,  and  then  fades  again  into  insignifi- 
cance until  the  fit  return.  Chief  of  those 
who  thus  smile  and  frown  on  me  by  turns,  I 
must  name  Virgil  and  Herrick,  who,  were 
they  but 

"  Their  sometime  selves  the  same  throughout  the  year," 

must  have  stood  in  the  first  company  with 
the  six  names  of  my  continual  literary 
intimates.  To  these  six,  incongruous  as 
they  seem,  I  have  long  been  faithful,  and 
hope  to  be  faithful  to  the  day  of  death.  I 
have  never  read  the  whole  of  Montaigne,  but 
I  do  not  like  to  be  long  without  reading 
some  of  him,  and  my  delight  in  what  I  do 
read  never  lessens.  Of  Shakespeare  I  have 
read  all  but  Richar-d  III.,  Henry  VI.,  Titus 
Aiidronicus,  and  AlVs  Well  that  Ends  Well; 


2  30         Memo7'ies  and  Portraits 

and  these,  having  already  made  all  suitable 
endeavour,  I  now  know  that  I  shall  never 
read — to  make  up  for  which  unfaithfulness  I 
could  read  much  of  the  rest  for  ever.  Of 
Moliere — surely  the  next  greatest  name  of 
Christendom  —  I  could  tell  a  very  similar 
story  ;  but  in  a  little  corner  of  a  little  essay 
these  princes  are  too  much  out  of  place,  and 
I  prefer  to  pay  my  fealty  and  pass  on.  How 
often  I  have  read  Guy  Ma7iJiefing,  Rob  Roy, 
or  Redgatintlety  I  have  no  means  of  guessing, 
having  begun  young.  But  it  is  either  four 
or  five  times  that  I  have  read  77/^  Egoist, 
and  either  five  or  six  that  I  have  read  the 
VicoiJite  dc  Bragelojine. 

Some,  who  would  accept  the  others,  may 
wonder  that  I  should  have  spent  so  much  of 
this  brief  life  of  ours  over  a  work  so  little 
famous  as  the  last.  And,  indeed,  I  am  sur- 
prised myself ;  not  at  my  own  devotion,  but 
the  coldness  of  the  world.  My  acquaintance 
with  the  Vicointe  began,  somewhat  indirectly, 
in  the  year  of  grace  1863,  when  I  had  the 
advantage    of    studying    certain     illustrated 


A  Gossip  on  a  Novel  of  Dumas  s  231 

dessert  plates  in  a  hotel  at  Nice.  The  name 
of  d'Artagnan  in  the  legends  I  already 
saluted  like  an  old  friend,  for  I  had  met  it 
the  year  before  in  a  work  of  Miss  Yonge's. 
My  first  perusal  was  in  one  of  those  pirated 
editions  that  swarmed  at  that  time  out  of 
Brussels,  and  ran  to  such  a  troop  of  neat  and 
dwarfish  volumes.  I  understood  but  little  of 
the  merits  of  the  book  ;  my  strongest  memory 
is  of  the  execution  of  d'Eymeric  and  Lyodot 
— a  strange  testimony  to  the  dulness  of  a 
boy,  who  could  enjoy  the  rough-and-tumble 
in  the  Place  de  Greve,  and  forget  d'Artagnan's 
visits  to  the  two  financiers.  My  next  reading 
was  in  winter-time,  when  I  lived  alone  upon 
the  Pentlands.  I  would  return  in  the  early 
night  from  one  of  my  patrols  with  the  shep- 
herd ;  a  friendly  face  would  meet  me  in  the 
door,  a  friendly  retriever  scurry  upstairs  to 
fetch  my  slippers  ;  and  I  would  sit  down  with 
the  Vicomte  for  a  long,  silent,  solitary  lamp- 
light evening  by  the  fire.  And  yet  I  know 
not  why  I  call  it  silent,  when  it  was  en- 
livened   with   such  a  clatter  of  horse-shoes. 


232         Memories  and  Portraits 

and  such  a  rattle  of  musketry,  and  such  a 
stir  of  talk  ;  or  why  I  call  those  evenings 
solitary  in  which  I  gained  so  many  friends. 
I  would  rise  from  my  book  and  pull  the 
blind  aside,  and  see  the  snow  and  the  glitter- 
ing hollies  chequer  a  Scotch  garden,  and  the 
winter  moonlight  brighten  the  white  hills. 
Thence  I  would  turn  again  to  that  crowded 
and  sunny  field  of  life  in  which  it  was  so  easy 
to  forget  myself,  my  cares,  and  my  surround- 
ings :  a  place  busy  as  a  city,  bright  as  a 
theatre,  thronged  with  memorable  faces,  and 
sounding  with  delightful  speech.  I  carried 
the  thread  of  that  epic  into  my  slumbers,  I 
woke  with  it  unbroken,  I  rejoiced  to  plunge 
into  the  book  again  at  breakfast,  it  was  with 
a  pang  that  I  must  lay  it  down  and  turn  to 
my  own  labours  ;  for  no  part  of  the  world 
has  ever  seemed  to  me  so  charming  as  these 
pages,  and  not  even  my  friends  are  quite  so 
real,  perhaps  quite  so  dear,  as  d'Artagnan. 

Since  then  I  have  been  going  to  and  fro  at 
very  brief  intervals  in  my  favourite  book  ;  and 
I  have  now  just  risen  from   my  last  (let  me 


A  Gossip  on  a  Novel  of  Dumas  s  233 

call  it  my  fifth)  perusal,  having  liked  it 
better  and  admired  it  more  seriously  than 
ever.  Perhaps  I  have  a  sense  of  ownership, 
being  so  well  known  in  these  six  volumes. 
Perhaps  I  think  that  d'Artagnan  delights  to 
have  me  read  of  him,  and  Louis  Ouatorze  is 
gratified,  and  Fouquet  throws  me  a  look,  and 
Aramis,  although  he  knows  I  do  not  love 
him,  yet  plays  to  me  with  his  best  graces,  as 
to  an  old  patron  of  the  show.  Perhaps,  if  I 
am  not  careful,  something  may  befall  me  like 
what  befell  George  IV.  about  the  battle  of 
Waterloo,  and  I  may  come  to  fancy  the 
Vicomte  one  of  the  first,  and  Heaven  knows 
the  best,  of  my  own  works.  At  least,  I  avow 
myself  a  partisan  ;  and  when  I  compare  the 
popularity  of  the  Vicomte  with  that  of 
Monte  Cristo,  or  its  own  elder  brother,  the 
Trois  Moiisquetaires,  I  confess  I  am  both 
pained  and  puzzled. 

To  those  who  have  already  made  acquaint- 
ance with  the  titular  hero  in  the  pages  of 
Vingt  Ans  Apres,  perhaps  the  name  may 
act  as  a  deterrent     A  man  might  well  stand 


2  34         Memories  and  Portraits 

back  if  he  supposed  he  were  to  follow,  for  six 
volumes,  so  well-conducted,  so  fine-spoken, 
and  withal  so  dreary  a  cavalier  as  Bragelonne. 
But  the  fear  is  idle.  I  may  be  said  to  have 
passed  the  best  years  of  my  life  in  these  six 
volumes,  and  my  acquaintance  with  Raoul 
has  never  gone  beyond  a  bow  ;  and  when  he, 
who  has  so  long  pretended  to  be  alive,  is  at  last 
suffered  to  pretend  to  be  dead,  I  am  some- 
times reminded  of  a  saying  in  an  earlier 
volume  :  "  Eiifiu,  dit  Miss  Stewart" — and  it 
was  of  Bragelonne  she  spoke — "  e?ijiu  it  a 
fait  qiielquecJiose  :  cest,  ma  foi  !  bicn  kcjireux." 
I  am  reminded  of  it,  as  I  say  ;  and  the  next 
moment,  when  Athos  dies  of  his  death,  and 
my  dear  d'Artagnan  bursts  into  his  storm  of 
sobbing,  I  can  but  depl6re  my  flippancy. 

Or  perhaps  it  is  La  Valliere  that  the  reader 
of  Vingt  Alls  Apres  is  inclined  to  flee.  Well, 
he  is  right  there  too,  though  not  so  right. 
Louise  is  no  success.  Her  creator  has  spared 
no  pains ;  she  is  well-meant,  not  ill-designed, 
sometimes  has  a  word  that  rings  out  true ; 
sometimes,  if  only  for  a  breath,  she  may  even 


A  Gossip  on  a  Novel  of  Dimias  s  235 

engage  our  sympathies.  But  I  have  never 
envied  the  King  his  triumph.  And  so  far 
from  pitying  Bragelonne  for  his  defeat,  I 
could  wish  him  no  worse  (not  for  lack  of 
malice,  but  imagination)  than  to  be  wedded 
to  that  lady.  Madame  enchants  me  ;  I  can 
forgive  that  royal  minx  her  most  serious 
offences  ;  I  can  thrill  and  soften  with  the 
King  on  that  memorable  occasion  when  he 
goes  to  upbraid  and  remains  to  flirt  ;  and 
when  it  comes  to  the  "  Allans,  ainiez-nioi  doiicl' 
it  is  my  heart  that  melts  in  the  bosom  of 
de  Guiche.  Not  so  with  Louise.  Readers 
cannot  fail  to  have  remarked  that  what  an 
author  tells  us  of  the  beauty  or  the  charm  of 
his  creatures  goes  for  nought  ;  that  we  know 
instantly  better ;  that  the  heroine  cannot 
open  her  mouth  but  what,  all  in  a  moment, 
the  fine  phrases  of  preparation  fall  from 
round  her  like  the  robes  from  Cinderella,  and 
she  stands  before  us,  self-betrayed,  as  a  poor, 
ugly,  sickly  wench,  or  perhaps  a  strapping 
market-woman.  Authors,  at  least,  know  it 
well  ;  a  heroine  will  too  often  start   the  trick 


236         Memories  and  Poi'tr aits 

of  "  getting  ugly  ;  "  and  no  disease  is  more 
difficult  to  cure.  I  said  authors  ;  but  indeed 
I  had  a  side  e}'e  to  one  author  in  particular, 
with  whose  works  I  am  very  well  acquainted, 
though  I  cannot  read  them,  and  who  has 
spent  many  vigils  in  this  cause,  sitting  beside 
his  ailing  puppets  and  (like  a  magician) 
wearying  his  art  to  restore  them  to  youth 
and  beauty.  There  are  others  who  ride  too 
high  for  these  misfortunes.  Who  doubts  the 
loveliness  of  Rosalind  ?  Arden  itself  was 
not  more  lovely.  Who  ever  questioned  the 
perennial  charm  of  Rose  Jocelyn,  Lucy  Dcs- 
borough,  or  Clara  Middleton  ?  fair  women  with 
fair  names,  the  daughters  of  George  Meredith, 
Elizabeth  Bennet  has  but  to  speak,  and  I  am 
at  her  knees.  Ah  !  these  are  the  creators 
of  desirable  women.  They  would  never  have 
fallen  in  the  mud  with  Dumas  and  poor  La 
Valliere.  It  is  my  only  consolation  that  not 
one  of  all  of  them,  except  the  first,  could 
have  plucked  at  the  moustache  of  d'Artagnan. 
Or  perhaps,  again,  a  proportion  of  readers 
stumble    at    the    threshold.      In    so    vast    a 


A  Gossip  on  a  Novel  of  Dimtas  s  237 

mansion  there  were  sure  to  be  back  stairs 
and  kitchen  offices  where  no  one  would 
delight  to  linger;  but  it  was  at  least  unhappy 
that  the  vestibule  should  be  so  badly  lighted ; 
and  until,  in  the  seventeenth  chapter, 
d'Artagnan  sets  off  to  seek  his  friends,  I  must 
confess,  the  book  goes  heavily  enough.  But, 
from  thenceforward,  what  a  feast  is  spread! 
Monk  kidnapped  ;  d'Artagnan  enriched  ; 
Mazarin's  death;  the  ever  delectable  adven- 
ture of  Belle  Isle,  wherein  Aramis  outwits 
d'Artagnan,  with  its  epilogue  (vol.  v.  chap, 
xxviii.),  where  d'Artagnan  regains  the  moral 
superiority;  the  love  adventures  at  Fontaine- 
bleau,  with  St.  Aignan's  story  of  the  dryad 
and  the  business  of  de  Guiche,  de  Wardes, 
and  Manicamp ;  Aramis  made  general  of 
the  Jesuits  ;  Aramis  at  the  bastille ;  the 
night  talk  in  the  forest  of  Senart  ;  Belle  Isle 
again,  with  the  death  of  Porthos  ;  and  last, 
but  not  least,  the  taming  of  d'Artagnan  the 
untamable,  under  the  lash  of  the  young 
King.  What  other  novel  has  such  epic 
variety  and  nobility  of  incident?  often,  if  you 


238         Memories  and  Portraits 

will,  impossible  ;  often  of  the  order  of  an 
Arabian  story  ;  and  yet  all  based  in  human 
nature.  For  if  you  come  to  that,  what  novel 
has  more  human  nature?  not  studied  with 
the  microscope,  but  seen  largely,  in  plain 
daylight,  with  the  natural  eye?  What  novel 
has  more  good  sense,  and  gaiety,  and  wit,  and 
unflagging,  admirable  literary  skill?  Good 
souls,  I  suppose,  must  sometimes  read  it  in 
the  blackguard  travesty  of  a  translation.  But 
there  is  no  style  so  untranslatable  ;  light  as 
a  whipped  trifle,  strong  as  silk ;  wordy  like 
a  village  tale  ;  pat  like  a  general's  despatch  ; 
with  every  fault,  yet  never  tedious ;  with 
no  merit,  yet  inimitably  right.  And,  once 
more,  to  make  an  end  of  commendations, 
what  novel  is  inspired  with  a  more  unstrained 
or  a  more  wholesome  morality  ? 

Yes  ;  in  spite  of  Miss  Yonge,  who  intro- 
duced me  to  the  name  of  d'Artagnan  only 
to  dissuade  me  from  a  nearer  knowledge  of 
the  man,  I  have  to  add  morality.  There  is  no 
quite  good  book  without  a  good  morality;  but 
the  world  is  wide,  and  so  are  morals.      Out  of 


A  Gossip  on  a  Novel  of  Dumas  s  239 

two  people  who  have  dipped  into  Sir  Richard 
Burton's  TJioiisand  and  One  Nights,  one  shall 
have  been  offended  by  the  animal  details  ; 
another  to  whom  these  were  harmless,  per- 
haps even  pleasing,  shall  yet  have  been 
shocked  in  his  turn  by  the  rascality  and 
cruelty  of  all  the  characters.  Of  two  readers, 
again,  one  shall  have  been  pained  by  the 
morality  of  a  religious  memoir,  one  by  that 
of  the  Vicovite  de  Bragelonne.  And  the 
point  is  that  neither  need  be  wrong.  We 
shall  always  shock  each  other  both  in  life 
and  art ;  we  cannot  get  the  sun  into  our 
pictures,  nor  the  abstract  right  (if  there  be 
such  a  thing)  into  our  books  ;  enough  if,  in 
the  one,  there  glimmer  some  hint  of  the  great 
light  that  blinds  us  from  heaven  ;  enough, 
if,  in  the  other,  there  shine,  even  upon  foul 
details,  a  spirit  of  magnanimity.  I  would 
scarce  send  to  the  Vicomte  a  reader  who  was 
in  quest  of  what  we  may  call  puritan  morality. 
The  ventripotent  mulatto,  the  great  eater, 
worker,  earner  and  waster,  the  man  of  much 
and   witty  laughter,    the   man   of  the   great 


240         Memories  and  Portraits 

heart  and  alas !  of  the  doubtful  honesty,  ia 
a  figure  not  yet  clearly  set  before  the  world; 
he  still  awaits  a  sober  and  yet  genial  portrait; 
but  with  whatever  art  that  may  be  touched, 
and  whatever  indulgence,  it  will  not  be  the 
portrait  of  a  precisian.  Dumas  was  certainly 
not  thinking  of  himself,  but  of  Planchet, 
when  he  put  into  the  mouth  of  d'Artagnan's 
old  servant  this  excellent  profession  :  "  Mon- 
sieur, fetais  une  de  ces  bo7ines  pates  (f  homines 
que  Dieii  a  fait  pour  s'animer  pendant  un 
certain  temps  et  pour  troiiver  bonnes  toutes 
chases  qui  accompagnent  leur  sejour  sur  la 
terre^  He  was  thinking,  as  I  say,  of  Plan- 
chet, to  whom  the  words  are  aptly  fitted  ; 
but  they  were  fitted  also  to  Planchet's 
creator ;  and  perhaps  this  struck  him  as  he 
wrote,  for  observe  what  follows:  '•^UArtag- 
nan  s'assit  alors  pres  de  la  fenetre,  et,  cette 
philosophic  de  Planchet  lui  ay  ant  paru  soUdc, 
il  y  reva."  In  a  man  who  finds  all  things 
good,  you  will  scarce  expect  much  zeal  for 
negative  virtues  :  the  active  alone  will  have 
a  charm   for  him  ;  abstinence,  howevei  wise, 


A  Gossip  on  a  Novel  of  Dumas  s  241 

however  kind,  will  always  seem  to  such  a 
judge  entirely  mean  and  partly  impious.  So 
with  Dumas.  Chastity  is  not  near  his  heart; 
nor  yet,  to  his  own  sore  cost,  that  virtue  of 
frugality  which  is  the  armour  of  the  artist. 
Now,  in  the  Viconitc,  he  had  much  to  do 
with  the  contest  of  Fouquet  and  Colbert. 
Historic  justice  should  be  all  upon  the  side 
of  Colbert,  of  official  honesty,  and  fiscal  com- 
petence. And  Dumas  knew  it  well  :  three 
times  at  least  he  shows  his  knowledge;  once 
it  is  but  flashed  upon  us  and  received  with 
the  laughter  of  Fouquet  himself,  in  the  jest- 
ing controversy  in  the  gardens  of  Saint 
Mande  ;  once  it  is  touched  on  by  Aramis  in 
the  forest  of  Scnart  ;  in  the  end,  it  is  set 
before  us  clearly  in  one  dignified  speech  of 
the  triumphant  Colbert.  But  in  Fouquet,  the 
waster,  the  lover  of  good  cheer  and  wit  and 
art,  the  swift  transactor  of  much  business, 
**  r/ionune  de  bin  tit,  I' ho  nunc  dc  plaisir, 
tJionniie  qui  iiest  que  pjneque  les  aiitres 
sont"  Dumas  saw  something  of  himself  and 

drew  the  figure  the  more  tenderly       It   is   to 
R 


242         Memories  and  Portraits 

me  even  touching  to  see  how  he  insists  on 
Fouquet's  honour  ;  not  seeing,  you  might 
think,  that  unflawed  honour  is  impossible  to 
spendthrifts  ;  but  rather,  perhaps,  in  the  h'ght 
of  his  own  life,  seeing  it  too  well,  and  cling- 
ing the  more  to  what  was  left.  Honour  can 
survive  a  wound ;  it  can  live  and  thrive  with- 
out a  member.  The  man  rebounds  from  his 
disgrace  ;  he  begins  fresh  foundations  on  the 
ruins  of  the  old  ;  and  when  his  sword  is 
broken,  he  will  do  valiantly  with  his  dagger. 
So  it  is  with  Fouquet  in  the  book;  so  it  was 
with  Dumas  on  the  battlefield  of  life. 

To  cling  to  what  is  left  of  any  damaged 
quality  is  virtue  in  the  man  ;  but  perhaps 
to  sing  its  praises  is  scarcely  to  be  called 
n  ^lality  in  the  writer.  And  it  is  elsewheie, 
it  is  in  the  character  of  d'Artagnan,  that  we 
must  look  for  that  spirit  of  morality,  which 
is  one  of  the  chief  merits  of  the  book,  makes 
one  of  the  main  joys  of  its  perusal,  and 
sets  it  high  above  more  popular  rivala 
Athos,  with  the  coming  of  years,  has  de- 
clined   too    much    into    the    preacher,    and 


A  Gossip  on  a  Novel  of  Du7nas  s  243 

the  preacher  of  a  sapless  creed  ;  but  d'Ar- 
tagnan  has  mellowed  into  a  man  so  witty, 
rough,  kind  and  upright,  that  he  takes 
the  heart  by  storm.  There  is  nothing  of 
the  copy-book  about  his  virtues,  nothing  of 
the  drawing-room  in  his  fine,  natural  civility; 
he  will  sail  near  the  wind  ;  he  is  no  dis- 
trict visitor — no  Wesley  or  Robespierre  ; 
his  conscience  is  void  of  all  refinement 
whether  for  good  or  evil  ;  but  the  whole  man 
rings  true  like  a  good  sovereign.  Readers 
who  have  approached  the  Vicovite,  not 
across  country,  but  by  the  legitimate,  five- 
volumed  avenue  of  the  Mousquetaires  and 
Vingt  Ans  Apres,  will  not  have  forgotten 
d'Artagnan's  ungentlemanly  and  perfectly 
improbable  trick  upon  Milady.  What  a 
pleasure  it  is,  then,  what  a  reward,  and  how 
agreeable  a  lesson,  to  see  the  old  captain 
humble  himself  to  the  son  of  the  man  whom 
he  had  personated !  Here,  and  through- 
out, if  I  am  to  choose  virtues  for  myself  or 
my  friends,  let  me  choose  the  virtues  of 
d'Artagnan.       I    do    not     say    there    is    no 


244         Memories  and  Portraits 

character  as  well  drawn  in  Shakespeare ;  1 
do  say  there  is  none  that  I  love  so  wholly. 
There  are  many  spiritual  eyes  that  seem  to 
spy  upon  our  actions — eyes  of  the  dead  and 
the  absent,  whom  we  imagine  to  behold  i,3 
in  our  most  private  hours,  and  whom  we  fear 
and  scruple  to  offend  :  our  witnesses  and 
judges.  And  among  these,  even  if  you 
should  think  me  childish,  I  must  count  my 
d'Artagnan — not  d'Artagnan  of  the  memoirs 
whom  Thackeray  pretended  to  prefer — a 
preference,  I  take  the  freedom  of  saying,  in 
which  he  stands  alone  ;  not  the  d'Artagnan 
of  flesh  and  blood,  but  him  of  the  ink  and 
paper ;  not  Nature's,  but  Dumas's.  And 
this  is  the  particular  crown  and  triumph  of 
the  artist- — not  to  be  true  merely,  but  to  be 
lovable  ;  not  simply  to  convince,  but  to 
enchant. 

There  is  yet  another  point  in  the  Vicointe 
which  I  find  incomparable.  I  can  recall  no 
other  work  of  the  imagination  in  which 
the  end  of  life  is  represented  with  so 
nice  a  tact.      I  was  asked   the  other  day  if 


A  Gossip  on  a  Novel  of  Duina^s  245 

Dumas  made  me  laugh  or  cry.  Well,  in 
this  my  late  fifth  reading  of  the  Vicojute^ 
I  did  laugh  once  at  the  small  Coquelin  de 
Voliere  business,  and  was  perhaps  a  thought 
surprised  at  having  done  so  :  to  make  up  for 
it,  I  smiled  continually.  But  for  tears,  I  do 
not  know.  If  you  put  a  pistol  to  my  throat, 
I  must  own  the  tale  trips  upon  a  very  airy 
foot — within  a  measurable  distance  of  un- 
reality; and  for  those  who  like  the  big  guns 
to  be  discharged  and  the  great  passions  to 
appear  authentically,  it  may  even  seem  in- 
adequate from  first  to  last.  Not  so  to  me  \ 
I  cannot  count  that  a  poor  dinner,  or  a  poor 
book,  where  I  meet  with  those  I  love  ;  and, 
above  all,  in  this  last  volume,  I  find  a  singular 
charm  of  spirit.  It  breathes  a  pleasant  and 
&  tonic  sadness,  always  brave,  never  hysteri- 
cal. Upon  the  crowded,  noisy  life  of  this 
long  tale,  evening  gradually  falls  ;  and  the 
lights  are  extinguished,  and  the  heroes  pass 
away  one  by  one.  One  by  one  they  go,  and 
not  a  regret  embitters  their  departure ;  the 
young  succeed   them   in   their  places,  Louis 


246         Memories  and  Portraits 

Quatorze  is  swelling  larger  and  shilling 
broader,  another  generation  and  another 
France  dawn  on  the  horizon  ;  but  for  us  and 
these  old  men  whom  we  have  loved  so  long 
the  inevitable  end  draws  near  and  is  wel- 
come. To  read  this  well  is  to  anticipate 
experience.  Ah,  if  only  when  these  hours 
of  the  long  shadows  fall  for  us  in  reality  and 
not  in  figure,  we  may  hope  to  face  them 
with  a  mind  as  quiet ! 

But  my  paper  is  running  out ;  the  siege 
guns  are  firing  on  the  Dutch  frontier  ;  and  I 
must  say  adieu  for  the  fifth  time  to  my  old 
comrade  fallen  on  the  field  of  glory.  Adieu 
— rather  au  revoir !  Yet  a  sixth  timCj 
dearest  d'Artagnan,  we  shall  kidnap  Monk 
and  take  horse  together  for  Belle  Isle. 


XV 
A  GOSSIP  ON  ROMANCE 

T  N  anything  fit  to  be  called  by  the  name 
of  reading,  the  process  itself  should  be 
absorbing  and  voluptuous  ;  we  should  gloat 
over  a  book,  be  rapt  clean  out  of  ourselves, 
and  rise  from  the  perusal,  our  mind  filled 
with  the  busiest,  kaleidoscopic  dance  of 
images,  incapable  of  sleep  or  of  continuous 
thought.  The  words,  if  the  book  be  elo- 
quent, should  run  thenceforward  in  our  ears 
like  the  noise  of  breakers,  and  the  story,  if 
it  be  a  story,  repeat  itself  in  a  thousand 
coloured  pictures  to  the  eye.  It  was  for 
this  last  pleasure  that  we  read  so  closely, 
and  loved  our  books  so  dearly,  in  the  bright, 
troubled    period    of    boyhood.       Eloquence 


248         Memories  and  Portraits 

and  thought,  character  and  conversation, 
vvere  but  obstacles  to  brush  aside  as  we 
dug  bhthely  after  a  certain  sort  of  incident, 
like  a  pig  for  truffles.  For  my  part,  I  liked 
a  story  to  begin  with  an  old  wayside  inn 
where,  "  towards  the  close  of  the  year  1 7 — ," 
several  gentlemen  in  three-cocked  hats  were 
playing  bowls.  A  friend  of  mine  preferred 
the  Malabar  coast  in  a  storm,  with  a  ship 
beating  to  windward,  and  a  scowling  fellow 
of  Herculean  proportions  striding  along  the 
beach  ;  he,  to  be  sure,  was  a  pirate.  This 
was  further  afield  than  my  home-keeping 
fancy  loved  to  travel,  and  designed  alto- 
gether for  a  larger  canvas  than  the  tales 
that  I  affected.  Give  me  a  highwayman 
and  I  was  full  to  the  brim  ;  a  Jacobite  would 
do,  but  the  highwayman  was  my  favourite 
dish.  I  can  still  hear  that  merry  clatter  of 
the  hoofs  along"  the  moonlit  lane  ;  night  and 
the  coming  of  day  are  still  related  in  my 
mind  with  the  doings  of  John  Rann  or 
Jerry  Abershaw ;  and  the  words  "post- 
chaise,"    the    "  preat    North    road,"    "  ostler," 


A  Gossip  on  Romance  249 

and  "  nag "  still  sound  in  my  ears  like 
poetry.  One  and  all,  at  least,  and  each  with 
his  particular  fancy,  we  read  story-books  in 
childhood,  not  for  eloquence  or  character  or 
thought,  but  for  some  quality  of  the  brute 
incident.  That  quality  was  not  mere  blood- 
shed or  wonder.  Although  each  of  these 
was  welcome  in  its  place,  the  charm  for  the 
sake  of  which  we  read  depended  on  some- 
thing different  from  either.  My  elders  used 
to  read  novels  aloud  ;  and  I  can  still  re- 
member four  different  passages  which  I 
heard,  before  I  was  ten,  with  the  same  keen 
and  lasting  pleasure.  One  I  discovered  long 
afterwards  to  be  the  admirable  opening  of 
What  will  he  Do  with  It :  it  was  no  wonder 
I  was  pleased  with  that.  The  other  three 
still  remain  unidentified.  One  is  a  little 
vague  ;  it  was  about  a  dark,  tall  house  at 
night,  and  people  groping  on  the  stairs  by 
the  light  that  escaped  from  the  open  door  of 
a  sickroom.  In  another,  a  lover  left  a  ball, 
and  went  walking  in  a  cool,  dewy  park, 
whence  he  could  watch  the  lighted  windows 


2  50         Memories  and  Portraits 

and  the  figures  of  the  dancers  as  they 
moved.  This  was  the  most  sentimental 
impression  I  think  I  had  yet  received,  for  a 
child  is  somewhat  deaf  to  the  sentimental. 
In  the  last,  a  poet,  who  had  been  tragically 
wrangling  with  his  wife,  walked  forth  on  the 
sea  -beach  on  a  tempestuous  night  and  witnessed 
the  horrors  of  a  wreck.-^  Different  as  they 
are,  all  these  early  favourites  have  a  common 
note — they  have  all  a  touch  of  the  romantic. 
Drama  is  the  poetry  of  conduct,  romance 
the  poetry  of  circumstance.  The  pleasure 
that  we  take  in  life  is  of  two  sorts — the  active 
and  the  passive.  Now  we  are  conscious  of  a 
great  command  over  our  destiny;  anon  we  are 
lifted  up  by  circumstance,  as  by  a  breaking 
wave,  and  dashed  we  know  not  how  into  the 
future.  Now  we  are  pleased  by  our  con- 
duct, anon  merely  pleased  by  our  surround- 
ings. It  would  be  hard  to  say  which  of 
these  modes  of  satisfaction  is  the  more  effec- 
tive,   but     the    latter    is     surely    the     more 

*  Since  traced  by  many  obliging  correspondents  to  tlia 
gallery  of  Charles  Kingsley, 


A  Gossip  on  Romance  2  5  i 

constant.  Conduct  is  three  parts  of  life,  they 
say;  but  I  think  they  put  it  high.  There  is  a 
vast  deal  in  Hfe  and  letters  both  which  is  not 
immoral,  but  simply  a-moral;  which  either 
does  not  regard  the  human  will  at  all,  or  deals 
with  it  in  obvious  and  healthy  relations ;  where 
the  interest  turns,  not  upon  what  a  man  shall 
choose  to  do,  but  on  how  he  manages  to  do 
it  ;  not  on  the  passionate  slips  and  hesita- 
tions of  the  conscience,  but  on  the  problems 
of  the  body  and  of  the  practical  intelligence, 
in  clean,  open-air  adventure,  the  shock  of 
arms  or  the  diplomacy  of  life.  With  such 
material  as  this  it  is  impossible  to  build  a 
play,  for  the  serious  theatre  exists  solely  on 
moral  grounds,  and  is  a  standing  proof  of 
the  dissemination  of  the  human  conscience. 
But  it  is  possible  to  build,  upon  this  ground, 
the  most  joyous  of  verses,  and  the  most 
lively,  beautiful,  and  buoyant  tales. 

One  thing  in  life  calls  for  another  ;  there 
is  a  fitness  in  events  and  places.  The  sight 
of  a  pleasant  arbour  puts  it  in  our  mind  to 
sit  there.      One  place  suggests  work,  another 


2  52         Memories  and  Portraits 

idleness,  a  third  early  rising  and  long 
rambles  in  the  dew.  The  effect  of  night,  of 
any  flowing  water,  of  lighted  cities,  of  the 
peep  of  day,  of  ships,  of  the  open  ocean, 
calls  up  in  the  mind  an  army  of  anonymous 
desires  and  pleasures.  Something,  we  feel, 
should  happen  ;  we  know  not  what,  yet  we 
proceed  in  quest  of  it.  And  many  of  the 
happiest  hours  of  life  fleet  by  us  in  this  vain 
attendance  on  the  genius  of  the  place  and 
moment.  It  is  thus  that  tracts  of  young 
fir,  and  low  rocks  that  reach  into  deep 
soundings,  particularly  torture  and  delight 
me.  Something  must  have  happened  in 
such  places,  and  perhaps  ages  back,  to  mem- 
bers of  my  race  ;  and  when  I  was  a  child  I 
tried  in  vain  to  invent  appropriate  games  for 
them,  as  I  still  try,  just  as  vainly,  to  fit 
them  with  the  proper  story.  Some  places 
speak  distinctly.  Certain  dank  gardens  cry 
aloud  for  a  murder  ;  certain  old  houses  de- 
mand to  be  haunted  ;  certain  coasts  are  set 
apart  for  shipwreck.  Other  spots  again 
seem   to  abide   their  destiny,  suggestive  and 


A  Gossip  on  Roinance  253 

impenetrable,  "  miching  mallecho."  The  Inn 
at  Burford  Bridge,  with  its  arbours  and  green 
garden  and  silent,  eddying  river — though  it 
is  known  already  as  the  place  where  Keats 
wrote  some  of  his  Endymion  and  Nelson 
parted  from  his  Emma — still  seems  to  wait 
the  coming  of  the  appropriate  legend. 
Within  these  ivied  walls,  behind  these  old 
green  shutters,  some  further  business 
smoulders,  waiting  for  its  hour.  The  old 
Hawes  Inn  at  the  Queen's  Ferry  makes  a  simi- 
lar call  upon  my  fancy.  There  it  stands,  apart 
from  the  town,  beside  the  pier,  in  a  climate  of 
its  own,  half  Inland,  half  marine — in  front,  the 
ferry  bubbling  with  the  tide  and  the  guard- 
ship  swinging  to  her  anchor  ;  behind,  the  old 
gaiden  with  the  trees.  Americans  seek  it 
already  for  the  sake  of  Lovel  and  Oldbuck, 
who  dined  there  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Antiquary.  But  you  need  not  tell  me — 
that  is  not  all  ;  there  is  some  story,  unre- 
corded or  not  yet  complete,  which  must 
express  the  meaning  of  that  Inn  more  fully. 
So  it  is  with  names  and  faces  ;  so  it  Is  with 


2  54         Memories  and  Portraits 

incidents  that  are  idle  and  inconclusive  in 
themselves,  and  yet  seem  like  the  beginning 
of  some  quaint  romance,  which  the  all- 
careless  author  leaves  untold.  How  many 
of  these  romances  have  we  not  seen  deter- 
mine at  their  birth  ;  how  many  people  have 
met  us  with  a  look  of  meaning  in  their  eye, 
and  sunk  at  once  into  trivial  acquaintances  ; 
to  how  many  places  have  we  not  drawn 
near,  with  express  intimations — "  here  my 
destiny  awaits  me  " — and  we  have  but  dined 
there  and  passed  on !  I  have  lived  both 
at  the  Hawes  and  Burford  in  a  perpetual 
flutter,  on  the  heels,  as  it  seened,  of  some 
adventure  that  should  justify  the  place  ;  but 
though  the  feeling  had  me  to  bed  at  night 
and  called  me  again  at  morning  in  one 
unbroken  round  of  pleasure  and  suspense, 
nothing  befell  me  in  either  worth  remark. 
The  man  or  the  hour  had  not  yet  come  ; 
but  some  day,  I  think,  a  boat  shall  put  off 
from  the  Queen's  Ferry,  fraught  with  a  dear 
cargo,  and  some  frosty  night  a  horseman, 
on  a    tragic    errand,   rattle    with    his    whip 


A  Gossip  on  Romance  255 

upon    the    green    shutters    of    the    inn    at 
Burford.^ 

Now,  this  is  one  of  the  natural  appetites 
with  which  any  lively  literature  has  to  count. 
The  desire  for  knowledge,  I  had  almost 
added  the  desire  for  meat,  is  not  more 
deeply  seated  than  this  demand  for  fit  and 
striking  incident.  The  dullest  of  clowns 
tells,  or  tries  to  tell,  himself  a  story,  as  the 
feeblest  of  children  uses  invention  in  his 
play ;  and  even  as  the  imaginative  grown 
person,  joining  in  the  game,  at  once  enriches 
it  with  many  delightful  circumstances,  the 
great  creative  writer  shows  us  the  realisation 
and  the  apotheosis  of  the  day-dreams  of 
common  men.  His  stories  may  be  nourished 
with  the  realities  of  life,  but  their  true  mark 
is  to  satisfy  the  nameless  longings  of  the 
reader,  and  to  obey  the  ideal  laws  of  the 
day-dream.  The  right  kind  of  thing  should 
fall  out  in  the  right  kind  of  place  ;  the  right 

'  Since  the  above  was  written  I  have  tried  to  launch 
the  boat  with  my  own  hands  in  Aidiiapfed.  Some  day, 
perhaps,  I  may  try  a  rattle  at  the  shutters. 


256         Memories  and  Pg!>  traits 

kind  of  thing  should  follow  ;  and  not  only 
the  characters  talk  aptly  and  think  naturally, 
but  all  the  circumstances  in  a  tale  answer 
one  to  another  like  notes  in  music.  The 
threads  of  a  story  come  from  time  to  time 
together  and  make  a  picture  in  the  web  ;  the 
characters  fall  from  time  to  time  into  some 
attitude  to  each  other  or  to  nature,  which 
stamps  the  story  home  like  an  illustration, 
Crusoe  recoiling  from  the  footprint,  Achilles 
shouting  over  against  the  Trojans,  Ulysses 
bending  the  great  bow,  Christian  running 
with  his  fingers  in  his  ears,  these  are  each 
culminating  moments  in  the  legend,  and 
each  has  been  printed  on  the  mind's  eye  for 
ever.  Other  things  we  may  forget  ;  we  may 
foi'get  the  words,  although  they  are  beauti- 
ful ;  we  may  forget  the  author's  comment, 
although  perhaps  it  was  ingenious  and  true  ; 
but  these  epoch-making  scenes,  which  put 
the  last  mark  of  truth  upon  a  story  and  fill 
up,  at  one  blow,  our  capacity  for  sympathetic 
pleasure,  we  so  adopt  into  the  very  bosom  of 
our    mind    that    neither   time    nor   tide    can 


A  Gossip  on  Romance  257 

efface  or  weaken  the  impression.  This, 
then,  is  the  plastic  part  of  hterature :  to 
embody  character,  thought,  or  emotion  in 
some  act  or  attitude  that  shall  be  remarkably 
striking  to  the  mind's  eye.  This  is  the 
highest  and  hardest  thing  to  do  in  words  ; 
the  thing  which,  once  accomplished,  equally 
delights  the  schoolboy  and  the  sage,  and 
makes,  in  its  own  right,  the  quality  of  epics. 
Compared  with  this,  all  other  purposes  in 
literature,  except  the  purely  lyrical  or  the 
purely  philosophic,  are  bastard  in  nature, 
facile  of  execution,  and  feeble  in  result.  It 
is  one  thing  to  write  about  the  inn  at  Bur- 
ford,  or  to  describe  scenery  with  the  word- 
painters  ;  it  is  quite  another  to  seize  on 
the  heart  of  the  suggestion  and  make  a 
country  famous  with  a  legend.  It  is  one 
thing  to  remark  and  to  dissect,  with  the  most 
cutting  logic,  the  complications  of  life,  and  of 
the  human  spirit  ;  it  is  quite  another  to  give 
them  body  and  blood  in  the  story  of  Ajax  or  of 
Hamlet.  The  first  is  literature,  but  the  second 
is  something  besides,  for  it  is  likewise  art 


258         Memories  and  Portraits 

English  people  of  the  present  day^  are  apt, 
I  know  not  why,  to  look  somewhat  down  on 
incident,  and  reserve  their  admiration  for 
the  clink  of  teaspoons  and  the  accents  of 
the  curate.  It  is  thought  clever  to  write  a 
novel  with  no  story  at  all,  or  at  least  with  a 
very  dull  one.  Reduced  even  to  the  lowest 
terms,  a  certain  interest  can  be  cqmmunicated 
by  the  art  of  narrative  ;  a  sense  of  human 
kinship  stirred  ;  and  a  kind  of  monotonous 
fitness,  comparable  to  the  words  and  air  of 
Sandys  Mud,  preserved  among  the  infini- 
tesimal occurrences  recorded.  Some  people 
work,  in  this  manner,  with  even  a  strong 
touch.  Mr.  TroUope's  inimitable  clergymen 
naturally  arise  to  the  mind  in  this  connec- 
tion. But  even  Mr.  Trollope  does  not  con- 
fine himself  to  chronicling  small  beer.  Mr. 
Crawley's  collision  with  the  Bishop's  wife, 
Mr.  Melnv.-tte  dallying  in  the  deserted  ban- 
quet-room, are  typical  incidents,  epically 
conceived,  fitly  embodying  a  crisis.  Or  again 
look  at  Thackeray.  If  Rawdon  Crawley's 
»  1S82 


A  Gossip  on  Romance  259 

blow  were  not  delivered,  Vanity  Fair  would 
cease  to  be  a  work  of  art.      That  scene  is  the 
chief  ganglion  of  the  tale  ;  and  the  discharge 
of  energy  from    Rawdon's   fist  is  the  reward 
and  consolation  of  the  reader.      The  end  of 
Esmond  is  a  yet  wider  excursion  from  the 
author's     customary    fields ;     the     scene     at 
Castlewood  is  pure   Dumas  ;  the  great  and 
wily   English   borrower   has    here    borrowed 
from   the  great,  unblushing  French  thief;  as 
usual,  he  has  borrowed   admirably  well,  and 
the  breaking  of  the  sword  rounds  off  the  best 
of  all  his  books  with  a  manly,  martial  note. 
But    perhaps    nothing    can     more     strongly 
illustrate  the  necessity  for  marking  incident 
than  to  compare  the  living  fame  of  Robinson 
Crnsoe  with  the  discredit  of  Clarissa  Harlowe. 
Clarissa  is  a  book   of  a  far  more  startling 
import,  worked  out,  on  a  great  canvas,  with 
inimitable  courage    and   unflagging   art.      It 
contains  wit,  character,  passion,  plot,  conver- 
sations   full    of   spirit    and     insight,    letters 
sparkling  with  unstrained  humanity  ;  and  if 
the  death  of  the  heroine  be  somewhat  frisid 


26o         Memories  and  Porh'aits 

and  artificial,  the  last  days  of  the  hero  strike 
the  only  note  of  what  we  now  call  Byronisni; 
between  the  Elizabethans  and  Byron  himself. 
And  yet  a  little  story  of  a  shipwrecked 
sailor,  with  not  a  tenth  part  of  the  style  nor 
a  thousandth  part  of  the  wisdom,  exploring 
none  of  the  arcana  of  humanity  and  deprived 
of  the  perennial  interest  of  love,  goes  on  from 
editio::  to  edition,  ever  young,  while  Clarissa 
lies  upon  the  shelves  unread.  A  friend  of 
mine,  a  Welsh  blacksmith,  was  twenty-five 
years  old  and  could  neither  read  nor  write, 
when  he  heard  a  chapter  of  Robinson  read 
aloud  in  a  farm  kitchen.  Up  to  that 
moment  he  had  sat  content,  huddled  in  his 
ignorance,  but  he  left  that  farm  another  man. 
There  were  day-dreams,  it  appeared,  divine 
day-dreams,  written  and  printed  and  bound, 
and  to  be  bought  for  money  and  enjoyed  at 
pleasure.  Down  he  sat  that  day,  painfully 
learned  to  read  Welsh,  and  returned  to 
borrow  the  book,  It  had  been  lost,  nor 
could  he  find  another  copy  but  one  that  was 
in  English.      Down  he  sat  once  more,  learned 


A  Gossip  on  Romance  261 

English,  and  at  length,  and  with  entire 
delight,  read  Robiuso?i.  It  is  like  the  story 
of  a  love-chase.  If  he  had  heard  a  letter 
from  Clarissa,  would  he  have  been  fired  with 
the  same  chivalrous  ardour  ?  I  wonder. 
Yet  Clarissa  has  every  quality  that  can  be 
shown  in  prose,  one  alone  excepted — pictorial 
or  picture-making  romance.  While  Robiiison 
depends,  for  the  most  part  and  with  the  over- 
whelming majority  of  its  readers,  on  the 
charm  of  circumstance. 

In  the  highest  achievements  of  the  art 
of  words,  the  dramatic  and  the  pictorial,  the 
moral  and  romantic  interest,  rise  and  fall 
together  by  a  common  and  organic  law. 
Situation  is  animated  with  passion,  passion 
clothed  upon  with  situation.  Neither  exists 
for  itself,  but  each  inheres  indissolubly  with 
the  other.  This  is  high  art  ;  and  not  only 
the  highest  art  possible  in  words,  but  the 
highest  art  of  all,  since  it  combines  the 
greatest  mass  and  diversity  of  the  elements 
of  truth  and  pleasure.  Such  are  epics,  and 
the  few  prose  tales  that  have  the  epic  weight 


262         Me7nories  and  Portraits 

But  as  from  a  school  of  works,  aping  the 
creative,  incident  and  romance  are  ruthlessly 
discarded,  so  may  character  and  drama  be 
omitted  or  subordinated  to  romance.  There 
is  one  book,  for  example,  more  generally 
loved  than  Shakespeare,  that  captivates  in 
childhood,  and  still  delights  in  age — I  mean 
the  Arabian  Nights — where  you  shall  look 
in  vain  for  moral  or  for  intellectual  interest. 
No  human  face  or  voice  greets  us  among 
that  wooden  crowd  ot  kings  and  genies, 
sorcerers  and  beggarmen.  Adventure,  on 
the  most  naked  terms,  furnishes  forth  the 
entertainment  and  is  found  enough.  Dumas 
approaches  perhaps  nearest  of  any  modern  to 
these  Arabian  authors  in  the  purely  material 
charm  of  some  of  his  romances.  The  early 
part  of  Monte  Crista,  down  to  the  finding 
of  the  treasure,  is  a  piece  of  perfect  story- 
telling ;  the  man  never  breathed  who  shared 
these  moving  incidents  without  a  tremor ; 
and  yet  Faria  is  a  thing  of  packthread  and 
Dantes  little  more  than  a  name.  The  sequel 
is  one  long-drawn  error,  gloomy,  bloody,  un- 


A  Gossip  on  Romance  263 

natural  and  dull  ;  but  as  for  these  early- 
chapters,  I  do  not  believe  there  is  another 
volume  extant  where  you  can  breathe  the 
same  unmingled  atmosphere  of  romance.  It 
is  very  thin  and  light,  to  be  sure,  as  on  a 
high  mountain  ;  but  it  is  brisk  and  clear  and 
sunny  in  proportion.  I  saw  the  other  day, 
with  envy,  an  old  and  a  very  clever  lady  set- 
ting forth  on  a  second  or  third  voyage  into 
Monte  Crista.  Here  are  stories  which 
powerfully  affect  the  reader,  which  can  be 
rcperused  at  any  age,  and  where  the  charac- 
ters are  no  more  than  puppets.  The  bony 
fist  of  the  showman  visibly  propels  them  ; 
their  springs  are  an  open  secret ;  their  faces 
are  of  wood,  their  bellies  filled  with  bran  ; 
and  yet  we  thrillingly  partake  of  their  ad- 
ventures. And  the  point  may  be  illustrated 
still  further.  The  last  interview  between 
Lucy  and  Richard  Feveril  is  pure  drama  ; 
more  than  that,  it  is  the  strongest  scene, 
since  Shakespeare,  in  the  English  tongue. 
Their  first  meeting  by  the  river,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  pure  romance  ;  it  has  nothing  to  do 


264         Memories  and  Portj'aits 

with  character  ;  it  might  happen  to  any 
other  boy  and  maiden,  and  be  none  the 
less  dehghtful  for  the  change.  And  yet  I 
think  he  would  be  a  bold  man  who  should 
choose  between  these  passages.  Thus,  in 
the  same  book,  we  may  have  two  scenes, 
each  capital  in  its  order  :  in  the  one,  human 
passion,  deep  calling  unto  deep,  shall  utter 
its  genuine  voice  ;^  in  the  second,  according 
circumstances,  like  instruments  in  tune,  shall 
build  up  a  trivial  but  desirable  incident, 
such  as  we  love  to  prefigure  for  ourselves  ; 
and  in  the  end,  in  spite  of  the  critics,  we 
may  hesitate  to  give  the  preference  to  either. 
The  one  may  ask  more  genius — I  do  not 
say  it  does  ;  but  at  least  the  other  dwells  as 
clearly  in  the  memory. 

True  romantic  art,  again,  makes  a  romance 
of  all  things.  It  reaches  into  the  highest 
abstraction  of  the  ideal  ;  it  does  not  refuse 
the  most  pedestrian  realism.  Robinson 
Crusoe  is  as  realistic  as  it  is  romantic  ;  both 
qualities  are  pushed  to  an  extreme,  and 
neither  suffers.      Nor  docs  romance  depend 


A  Gossip  on  Romance  265 

upon  the  material  importance  of  the  in- 
cidents. To  deal  with  strong  and  deadly 
elements,  banditti,  pirates,  war  and  murder, 
is  to  conjure  with  great  names,  and,  in  the 
event  of  failure,  to  double  the  disgrace.  The 
arrival  of  Haydn  and  Consuelo  at  the  Canon's 
villa  is  a  very  trifling  incident  ;  yet  we  may 
read  a  dozen  boisterous  stories  from  begin- 
ning to  end,  and  not  receive  so  fresh  and  stir- 
ring an  impression  of  adventure.  It  was  the 
scene  of  Crusoe  at  the  wreck,  if  I  remember 
rightly,  that  so  bewitched  my  blacksmith. 
Nor  is  the  fact  surprising.  Every  single 
article  the  castaway  recovers  from  the  hulk 
is  "  a  joy  for  ever  "  to  the  man  who  reads  of 
them.  They  are  the  things  that  should  be 
found,  and  the  bare  enumeration  stirs  the 
blood.  I  found  a  glimmer  of  the  same 
interest  the  other  day  in  a  new  book,  TJie 
Sailor's  Sweetheart,  by  Mr,  Clark  Russell. 
The  whole  business  of  the  brig  Mortmig  Star 
is  very  rightly  felt  and  spiritedly  written  ; 
but  the  clothes,  the  books  and  the  money 
satisfy  the  reader's  mind   like  things  to  eat 


2  66         MeM07Hes  and  Portraits 

We  are  dealing  here  with  the  old  cut-and- 
dry,  legitimate  interest  of"  treasure  trove. 
But  even  treasure  trove  can  be  made  dull. 
There  are  few  people  who  have  not  groaned 
under  the  plethora  of  goods  that  fell  to  the 
lot  of  the  Szviss  Family  Robinson,  that  dreary 
family.  They  found  article  after  article, 
creature  after  creature,  from  milk  kine  to 
pieces  of  ordnance,  a  whole  consignment ; 
but  no  informing  taste  had  presided  over  the 
selection,  there  was  no  smack  or  relish  in 
the  invoice  ;  and  these  riches  left  the  fancy 
cold.  The  box  of  goods  in  Verne's  Mysteri- 
ous Island  is  another  case  in  point  :  there 
was  no  gusto  and  no  glamour  about  that  ; 
it  might  have  come  from  a  shop.  But  the 
two  hundred  and  seventy-eight  Australian 
sovereigns  on  board  the  Morning  Star  fell 
upon  me  like  a  surprise  that  I  had  expected  ; 
whole  vistas  of  secondary  stories,  besides  the 
one  in  hand,  radiated  forth  from  that  dis- 
covery, as  they  radiate  from  a  striking  particu- 
lar in  life  ;  and  I  was  made  for  the  moment 
as  happy  as  a  reader  has  the  right  to  b-s. 


A  Gossip  on  Romance  267 

To  come  at  all  at  the  nature  of  this  quality 
of  romance,  we  must  bear  in  mind  the  pecu- 
liarity of  our  attitude  to  any  art.  No  art 
produces  illusion ;  in  the  theatre  we  never 
forget  that  we  are  in  the  theatre  ;  and  while 
we  read  a  story,  we  sit  wavering  between  two 
minds,  now  merely  clapping  our  hands  at  the 
merit  of  the  performance,  now  condescending 
to  take  an  active  part  in  fancy  with  the 
characters.  This  last  is  the  triumph  ot 
romantic  story-telling ;  when  the  reader  con- 
sciously plays  at  being  the  hero,  the  scene  is 
a  good  scene.  Now  in  character-studies  the 
pleasure  that  we  take  is  critical;  we  watch, 
we  approve,  we  smile  at  incongruities,  we  are 
moved  to  sudden  heats  of  sympathy  wi*^h 
courage,  suffering  or  virtue.  But  the  charac- 
ters are  still  themselves,  they  are  not  us;  the 
more  clearly  they  are  depicted,  the  more 
widely  do  they  stand  away  from  us,  the  more 
imperiously  do  they  thrust  us  back  into  our 
place  as  a  spectator.  I  cannot  identify  myself 
with  Rawdon  Crawley  or  with  Eugene  de 
Rastignac,  for  I  have  scarce  a  hope  or  feaf 


268         Mejjioj'ies  and  Portraits 

in  common  with  them.  It  is  not  character 
but  incident  that  woos  us  out  of  our  reserve. 
Something  happens  as  we  desire  to  have  it  hap- 
pen to  ourselves  ;  some  situation,  that  we  have 
long  dallied  with  in  fancy,  is  realised  in  the 
story  with  enticing  and  appropriate  details. 
Then  we  forget  the  characters ;  then  we  push 
the  hero  aside;  then  we  plunge  into  the  tale 
in  our  own  person  and  bathe  in  fresh  ex- 
perience; and  then,  and  then  only,  do  we  say 
we  have  been  reading  a  romance.  It  is  not 
only  pleasurable  things  that  we  imagine  in 
our  day-dreams ;  there  are  lights  in  which  we 
are  willing  to  contemplate  even  the  idea  of 
our  own  death ;  ways  in  which  it  seems  as  if 
it  would  amuse  us  to  be  cheated,  wounded  or 
calumniated.  It  is  thus  possible  to  construct 
a  story,  even  of  tragic  import,  in  which  every 
incident,  detail  and  trick  of  circumstance  shall 
be  welcome  to  the  reader's  thoughts.  Fiction 
is  to  the  grown  man  what  play  is  to  the 
child  ;  it  is  there  that  he  changes  tlie  atmo- 
sphere and  tenor  of  his  life ;  and  when 
the    game    so    chimes   with    his    fancy   that 


A  Gossip  on  Romance  269 

he  can  join  in  it  with  all  his  heart,  when 
it  pleases  him  with  every  turn,  when  he 
loves  to  recall  it  and  dwells  upon  its  recol- 
lection with  entire  delight,  .fiction  is  called 
romance. 

Walter  Scott  is  out  and  away  the  king  of 
the  romantics.  The  Lady  of  the  Lake  has  no 
indisputable  claim  to  be  a  poem  beyond  the 
inherent  fitness  and  desirability  of  the  tale. 
It  is  just  such  a  story  as  a  man  would  make 
up  for  himself,  walking,  in  the  best  health 
and  temper,  through  just  such  scenes  as  it  is 
laid  in.  Hence  it  is  that  a  charm  dwells 
undefinable  among  these  slovenly  verses,  as 
the  unseen  cuckoo  fills  the  mountains  with  his 
note ;  hence,  even  after  we  have  flung  the 
book  aside,  the  scenery  and  adventures  re- 
main present  to  the  mind,  a  new  and  green 
possession,  not  unworthy  of  that  beautiful 
name,  TJie  Lady  of  the  Lake,  or  that  direct, 
romantic  opening — one  of  the  most  spirited 
and  poetical  in  literature — "  The  stag  at  eve 
had  drunk  his  fill."  The  same  strength  and 
the  same  weaknesses  adorn  and  disfi'jure  the 


270         Ale7nories  and  Portraits 

novels.  In  that  ill-written,  ragged  book, 
The  Pirate^  the  figure  of  Cleveland — cast  up 
by  the  sea  on  the  resounding  foreland  ol 
Dunrossness — moving,  with  the  blood  on  his 
hands  and  the  Spanish  words  on  his  tongue, 
among  the  simple  islanders  —  singing  a 
serenade  under  the  window  of  his  Shetland 
mistress — is  conceived  in  the  very  highest 
manner  of  romantic  invention.  The  words 
of  his  song,  "  Through  groves  of  palm," 
sung  in  such  a  scene  and  by  such  a 
lover,  clench,  as  in  a  nutshell,  the  emphatic 
contrast  upon  which  the  tale  is  built.  In 
Guy  Mannering,  again,  every  incident  is 
delightful  to  the  imagination  ;  and  the 
scene  when  Harry  Bertram  lands  at  Ellan- 
gowan  is  a  model  instance  of  romantic 
method. 

" '  I  remember  the  tune  well,'  he  says, 
'  though  I  cannot  guess  what  should  at  pre- 
sent so  strongly  recall  it  to  my  memory.' 
He  took  his  flageolet  from  his  pocket  and 
played  a  simpfe  melody.  Apparently  the 
tune   awoke    the    corresponding   associations 


A  Gossip  on  Romance  271 

of  a  damsel.  .  .      She  immediately  took  up 
the  song — 

** '  Are  these  the  linlcs  of  Forth,  she  said  ; 
Or  are  they  the  crooks  of  Dee, 
Or  the  bonny  woods  of  Warroch  Head 
That  I  so  fain  would  see?' 

"'By  heaven!'  said  Bertram,  'it  is  the 
very  ballad.'" 

On  this  quotation  two  remarks  fall  to  be 
made.  First,  as  an  instance  of  modern  feel- 
ing for  romance,  this  famous  touch  of  the 
flageolet  and  the  old  song  is  selected  by  Miss 
Braddon  for  omission.  Miss  Braddon's  idea 
of  a  story,  like  Mrs.  Todgers's  idea  of  a 
wooden  leg,  were  something  strange  to  have 
expounded.  As  a  matter  of  personal  ex- 
perience, Meg's  appearance  to  old  Mr.  Bertram 
on  the  road,  the  ruins  of  Dcrncleugh,  the 
scene  of  the  flageolet,  and  the  Dominie's 
recognition  of  Harry,  are  the  four  strong 
notes  that  continue  to  ring  in  the  mind  after 
the  book  is  laid  aside.  The  second  point  is 
still  more  curious.  The  reader  will  observe 
a  mark  of  excision  in  the  passage  as  quoted 


2/2         Memories  and  Portraits 

by  me.  Well,  here  is  how  it  runs  in  the 
original:  "a  damsel,  who,  close  behind  a 
fine  spring  about  half-way  down  the  descent, 
and  which  had  once  supplied  the  castle  with 
water,  was  engaged  in  bleaching  linen."  A 
man  who  gave  in  such  copy  would  be  dis- 
charged from  the  staff  of  a  daily  paper. 
Scott  has  forgotten  to  prepare  the  reader 
for  the  presence  of  the  "  damsel " ;  he  has 
forgotten  to  mention  the  spring  and  its  rela- 
tion to  the  ruin  ;  and  now,  face  to  face  with 
his  omission,  instead  of  trying  back  and 
starting  fair,  crams  all  this  matter,  tail  fore- 
most, into  a  single  shambling  sentence.  It 
is  not  merely  bad  English,  or  bad  style;  it  is 
abominably  bad  narrative  besides. 

Certainly  the  contrast  is  remarkable  ;  and 
it  is  one  that  throws  a  strong  light  upon  the 
subject  of  this  paper.  For  here  we  have  a 
man  of  the  finest  creative  instinct  touching 
with  perfect  certainty  and  charm  the  romantic 
junctures  of  his  story ;  and  we  find  him 
utterly  careless,  almost,  it  would  seenrj,  in- 
capable, in  the  technical  matter  of  style,  and 


A  Gossip  on  Romance  273 

not  only  frequently  weak,  but  frequently 
wrong  in  points  of  drama.  In  character  parts, 
indeed,  and  particularly  in  the  Scotch,  he  was 
delicate,  strong  and  truthful ;  but  the  trite, 
obliterated  features  of  too  many  of  his  heroes 
have  already  wearied  two  generations  of 
readers.  At  times  his  characters  will  speak 
with  something  far  beyond  propriety  with  a 
true  heroic  note;  but  on  the  next  page  they 
will  be  wading  wearily  forward  with  an  un- 
grammatical  and  undramatic  rigmarole  of 
words.  The  man  who  could  conceive  and 
write  the  character  of  Elspeth  of  the  Craig- 
burnfoot,  as  Scott  has  conceived  and  written 
it,  had  not  only  splendid  romantic,  but 
splendid  tragic  gifts.  How  comes  it,  then, 
that  he  could  so  often  fob  us  off  with  languid, 
inarticulate  twaddle  ? 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  explanation  is  to 
be  found  in  the  very  quality  of  his  surprising 
merits.  As  his  books  are  play  to  the  reader, 
so  were  they  play  to  him.  He  conjured  up 
the  romantic  with  delight,  but  he  had  hardly 
patience  to  describe  it.      He  was  a  great  day- 


274         Memories  and  Portraits 

dreamer,  a  seer  of  fit  and  beautiful  and 
humorous  visions,  but  hardly  a  great  artist; 
hardly,  in  the  manful  sense,  an  artist  at  all. 
He  pleased  himself,  and  so  he  pleases  us.  Of 
the  pleasures  of  his  art  he  tasted  fully;  but 
of  its  toils  and  vigils  and  distresses  never 
man  knew  less.  A  great  romantic — an  idle 
child. 


XVI 

A   HUMBLE   REMONSTRANCE^ 
I 

"\"\ /"E  have  recently^  enjoyed  a  quite 
peculiar  pleasure :  hearing,  in  some 
detail,  the  opinions,  about  the  art  they  practise, 
of  Mr.  Walter  Besant  and  Mr.  Henry  James; 
two  men  certainly  of  very  different  calibre  : 
Mr.  James  so  precise  of  outline,  so  cunning 
of  fence,  so  scrupulous  of  finish,  and  Mr. 
Besant  so  genial,  so  friendly,  with  so  per- 
suasive and  humorous  a  vein  of  whim :  Mr. 
James  the  very  type  of  the  deliberate  artist, 

^  This  paper,  which  does  not  otherwise  fit  the  present 
vohime,  is  reprinted  here  as  the  proper  continuation  of 
the  last. 

2  1S84. 


276         Memories  and  Porb'aits 

Mr.  Besant  the  impersonation  of  good  nature. 
That  such  doctors  should  differ  will  excite 
no  great  surprise  ;  but  one  point  in  which 
they  seem  to  agree  fills  me,  I  confess,  with 
wonder.  For  they  are  both  content  to  talk 
about  the  "  art  of  fiction  ;"  and  Mr.  Besant, 
waxing  exceedingly  bold,  goes  on  to  oppose 
this  so-called  "  art  of  fiction  "  to  the  "  art  of 
poetry."  By  the  art  of  poetry  he  can  mean 
nothing  but  the  art  of  verse,  an  art  of  handi- 
craft, and  only  comparable  with  the  art  of 
prose.  For  that  heat  and  height  of  sane 
emotion  which  we  agree  to  call  by  the  name 
of  poetry,  is  but  a  libertine  and  vagrant 
quality  ;  present,  at  times,  in  any  art,  more 
often  absent  from  them  all  ;  too  seldom 
present  in  the  prose  novel,  too  frequently 
absent  from  the  ode  and  epic.  Fiction  is  in 
the  same  case  ;  it  is  no  substantive  art,  but 
an  element  which  enters  largely  into  all  the 
arts  but  architecture.  Homer,  Wordsworth, 
Phidias,  Hogarth,  and  Salvini,  all  deal  in 
fiction  ;  and  yet  I  do  not  suppose  that  either 
Hogarth   or    Salvini,   to   mention    but   these 


A  Hiunble  Remonsti'aiice        277 

two,  entered  in  any  degree  into  the  scope 
of  Mr.  Besant's  interesting  lecture  or  Mr. 
James's  charming  essay.  The  art  of  fiction, 
then,  regarded  as  a  definition,  is  both  too 
ample  and  too  scanty.  Let  me  suggest 
another  ;  let  me  suggest  that  what  both  Mr. 
James  and  Mr.  Besant  had  in  view  was 
neither  more  nor  less  than  the  art  of  nar- 
rative. 

But  Mr.  Besant  is  anxious  to  speak  solely 
of  "  the  modern  English  novel,"  the  stay  and 
bread-winner  of  Mr.  Mudie ;  and  in  the 
author  of  the  most  pleasing  novel  on  that 
roll,  All  Sorts  and  Conditions  of  Men,  the 
desire  is  natural  enough.  I  can  conceive 
then,  that  he  would  hasten  to  propose  two 
additions,  and  read  thus  :  the  art  of  fictitious 
narrative  in  p7-ose. 

Now  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  the 
modern  English  novel  is  not  to  be  denied  ; 
materially,  with  its  three  volumes,  leaded 
type,  and  gilded  lettering,  it  is  easily  dis- 
tinguishable from  other  forms  of  literature  ; 
but  to  talk  at  all  fruitfully  of  any  branch  of 


2^8         Memo7'ies  aitd  Portraits 

art,  it  is  needful  to  build  our  definitions  on 
some  more  fundamental  ground  than  binding. 
Why,  then,  are  we  to  add  "in  prose?"  TJie 
Odyssey  appears  to  me  the  best  of  romances  ; 
The  Lady  of  the  Lake  to  stand  high  in  the 
second  order  ;  and  Chaucer's  tales  and  pro- 
logues to  contain  more  of  the  matter  and  art 
of  the  modern  English  novel  than  the  whole 
treasury  of  Mr.  Mudie.  Whether  a  narrative 
be  written  in  blank  verse  or  the  Spenserian 
stanza,  in  the  long  period  of  Gibbon  or  the 
chipped  phrase  of  Charles  Reade,  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  art  of  narrative  must  be  equally 
observed.  The  choice  of  a  noble  and  swell- 
ing style  in  prose  affects  the  problem  of 
narration  in  the  same  way,  if  not  to  the  same 
degree,  as  the  choice  of  measured  verse  ;  for 
both  imply  a  closer  synthesis  of  events,  a 
higher  key  cf  dialogue,  and  a  more  picked 
and  stately  strain  of  words.  If  you  are  to 
refuse  Don  Juan,  it  is  hard  to  see  why  you 
should  include  Zanoiii  or  (to  bracket  works 
of  very  different  value)  The  Scarlet  Letter ; 
and  by  what  discrimination  are  you  to  open 


A  Himible  Remonstrance        279 

your  doors  to  The  Pilgrim's  Progjrss  and 
close  them  on  T/ic  Faery  Queai  ?  To  bring 
things  closer  home,  I  will  here  propound  to 
Mr.  Besant  a  conundrum.  A  narrative  called 
Paradise  Lost  was  written  in  English  verse 
by  one  John  Milton  ;  what  was  it  then  ?  It 
was  next  translated  by  Chateaubriand  into 
F'rench  prose  ;  and  what  was  it  then  ? 
Lastly,  the  French  translation  was,  by  some 
inspired  compatriot  of  George  Gilfillan  (and 
of  mine)  turned  bodily  into  an  English  novel  ; 
and,  in  the  name  of  clearness,  what  was  it 
then? 

But,  once  more,  why  should  we  add 
"fictitious"?  The  reason  why  is  obvious. 
The  reason  why  not,  if  something  more 
recondite,  does  not  want  for  weight.  The 
art  of  narrative,  in  fact,  is  the  same,  whether 
it  is  applied  to  the  selection  and  illustration 
of  a  real  series  of  events  or  of  an  imaginary 
series.  Boswell's  Life  of  foJinson  (a  work  of 
cunning  and  inimitable  art)  owes  its  success  to 
the  same  technical  manoeuvres  as  (let  us  say) 
Tom  fones :  the  clear  conception   of  certain 


2  8 o         Memories  a iid  Portraits 

characters  of  man,  the  choice  and  presenta- 
tion of  certain  incidents  out  of  a  great 
number  that  offered,  and  the  invention 
(yes,  invention)  and  preservation  of  a  cer- 
tain key  in  dialogue.  In  vi'hich  these  things 
are  done  with  the  more  art  —  in  which 
with  the  greater  air  of  nature — readers  will 
differently  judge.  Boswell's  is,  indeed,  a 
very  special  case,  and  almost  a  generic  ;  but 
it  is  not  only  in  Boswell,  it  is  in  every 
biography  with  any  salt  of  life,  it  is  in  every 
history  where  events  and  men,  rather  than 
ideas,  are  presented — in  Tacitus,  in  Carlyle, 
in  Michelet,  in  Macaulay — that  the  novelist 
will  find  many  of  his  own  methods  most 
conspicuously  and  adroitly  handled.  He 
will  find  besides  that  he,  who  is  free — who 
has  the  right  to  invent  or  steal  a  missing 
incident,  who  has  the  right,  more  precious 
still,  of  wholesale  omission — is  frequently 
defeated,  and,  with  all  his  advantages,  leaves 
a  less  strong  impression  of  reality  and  pas- 
sion. Mr.  James  utters  his  mind  with  a 
becoming  fervour  on  the  sanctity  of  truth  to 


A  Humble  Remonstrance        2  8 1 

the  novelist ;  on  a  more  careful  examination 
truth  will  seem  a  word  of  very  debateable 
propriety,  not  only  for  the  labours  of  the 
novelist,  but  for  those  of  the  historian.  No 
art — to  use  the  daring  phrase  of  Mr.  James 
— can  successfully  "  compete  with  life  ;"  and 
the  art  that  seeks  to  do  so  is  condemned 
to  perish  inontibiis  aviis.  Life  goes  before 
us,  infinite  in  complication  ;  attended  by  the 
most  various  and  surprising  meteors ;  ap- 
pealing at  once  to  the  eye,  to  the  ear,  to  the 
mind — the  seat  of  wonder,  to  the  touch — so 
thrillingly  delicate,  and  to  the  belly — so 
imperious  when  starved.  It  combines  and 
employs  in  its  manifestation  the  method  and 
material,  not  of  one  art  only,  but  of  all 
the  arts.  Music  is  but  an  arbitrary  trifling 
with  a  few  01  life's  majestic  chords  ;  paint- 
ing is  but  a  shadow  of  its  pageantry  of 
light  and  colour  ;  literature  docs  but  drily 
indicate  that  wealth  of  incident,  of  moral 
obligation,  of  virtue,  vice,  action,  rapture 
and  agony,  with  which  it  teems.  To  "  com- 
pete with   life,"  whose   sun   we   cannot   look 


282         Memo7'ies  and  Portraits 

upon,  whose  passions  and  diseases  waste  and 
slay  us — to  compete  with  the  flavour  of 
wine,  the  beauty  of  the  dawn,  the  scorching 
of  fire,  the  bitterness  of  death  and  separation 
— here  is,  indeed,  a  projected  escalade  of 
heaven  ;  here  are,  indeed,  labours  for  a  Her- 
cules in  a  dress  coat,  armed  with  a  pen  and 
a  dictionary  to  depict  the  passions,  armed 
with  a  tube  of  superior  flake-white  to  paint 
the  portrait  of  the  insufferable  sun.  No  art 
is  true  in  this  sense :  none  can  "  compete 
with  life : "  not  even  history,  built  indeed  of 
indisputable  facts,  but  these  facts  robbed  of 
their  vivacity  and  sting  ;  so  that  even  when 
we  read  of  the  sack  of  a  city  or  the  fall  of 
an  empire,  we  are  surprised,  and  justly  com- 
mend the  author's  talent,  if  our  pulse  be 
quickened.  And  mark,  for  a  last  differentia, 
that  this  quickening  of  the  pulse  is,  in  almost 
every  case,  purely  agreeable  ;  that  these 
phantom  reproductions  of  experience,  even 
at  their  most  acute,  convey  decided  pleasure  ; 
while  experience  itself,  in  the  cockpit  of  life., 
can  torture  and  slay. 


A  Humble  Remonstrance        283 

What,  then,  is  the  object,  what  the  method, 
of  an  art,  and  what  the  source  of  its  power  ? 
The  whole  secret  is  that  no  art  does  "  com- 
pete with  life."  Man's  one  method,  whether 
he  reasons  or  creates,  is  to  half-shut  his  eyea 
against  the  dazzle  and  confusion  of  reality. 
The  arts,  like  arithmetic  and  geometry,  turn 
away  their  eyes  from  the  gross,  coloured  and 
mobile  nature  at  our  feet,  and  regard  instead 
a  certain  figmentary  abstraction.  Geometry 
will  tell  us  of  a  circle,  a  thing  never  seen  in 
nature  ;  asked  about  a  green  circle  or  an 
iron  circle,  it  lays  its  hand  upon  its  mouth. 
So  with  the  arts.  Painting,  ruefully  com- 
paring sunshine  and  flake-white,  gives  up 
tiuth  of  colour,  as  it  had  already  given  up 
relief  and  movement  ;  and  instead  of  vying 
with  nature,  arranges  a  scheme  of  harmonious 
tints.  Literature,  above  all  in  its  most  typi- 
cal mood,  the  mood  of  narrative,  similarly 
flees  the  direct  challenge  and  pursues  instead 
an  independent  and  creative  aim.  So  far  as 
it  imitates  at  all,  it  imitates  not  life  but 
speech  :  not  the  facts  of  human  destin}'-,  but 


284         Memories  and  Portraits 

the  emphasis  and  the  suppressions  v/ith 
which  the  human  actor  tells  of  them.  The 
real  art  that  dealt  with  life  directly  was 
that  of  the  first  men  who  told  their  stories 
round  the  savage  camp-fire.  Our  art  is 
occupied,  and  bound  to  be  occupied,  not  so 
much  in  making  stories  true  as  in  making 
them  typical  ;  not  so  much  in  capturing  the 
lineaments  of  each  fact,  as  in  marshalling  all 
of  them  towards  a  common  end.  For  the 
welter  of  impressions,  all  forcible  but  all 
discreet,  which  life  presents,  it  substitutes  a 
certain  artificial  series  of  impressions,  all 
indeed  most  feebly  represented,  but  all  aim- 
ing at  the  same  effect,  all  eloquent  of  the 
same  idea,  all  chiming  together  like  con- 
sonant notes  in  music  or  like  the  graduated 
tints  in  a  good  picture.  From  all  its  chap- 
ters, from  all  its  pages,  from  all  its  sentences, 
the  well-written  novel  echoes  and  re-echoes 
its  one  creative  and  controlling  thought  ;  to 
this  must  every  incident  and  character  con- 
tribute ;  the  style  must  have  been  pitched 
in  unison  with  this  ;  and  if  there  is  anywhere 


A  Himible  Remonstrance        285 

a  word  that  looks  another  way,  the  boc)k 
would  be  stronger,  clearer,  and  (I  had  almost 
said)  fuller  without  it.  Life  is  monstrous, 
infinite,  illogical,  abrupt  and  poignant  ;  a 
work  of  art,  in  comparison,  is  neat,  finite, 
self-contained,  rational,  flowing  and  emascu- 
late. Life  imposes  by  brute  energy,  like 
inarticulate  thunder ;  art  catches  the  ear, 
among  the  far  louder  noises  of  experience, 
like  an  air  artificially  made  by  a  discreet 
musician.  A  proposition  of  geometry  does 
not  compete  with  life  ;  and  a  proposition  of 
geometry  is  a  fair  and  luminous  parallel  for 
a  work  of  art.  Both  are  reasonable,  both 
untrue  to  the  crude  fact ;  both  inhere  in 
nature,  neither  represents  it.  The  novel, 
which  is  a  work  of  art,  exists,  not  by  its 
resemblances  to  life,  which  are  forced  and 
material,  as  a  shoe  must  still  consist  of 
leather,  but  by  its  immeasurable  difference 
from  life,  which  is  designed  and  sigin'ficant, 
and  is  both  the  method  and  the  meaning  of 
the  work. 

The    life    of    man    is    not    the    subject   of 


2  86         Memories  and  Portraits 

novels,  but  the  inexhaustible  magazine  from 
which  subjects  are  to  be  selected  ;  the  name 
of  these  is  legion  ;  and  with  each  new  subject 
— for  here  again  I  must  differ  by  the  whole 
width  of  heaven  from  Mr.  James — the  true 
artist  will  vary  his  method  and  change  the 
point  of  attack.  That  which  was  in  one 
case  an  excellence,  will  become  a  defect  in 
another  ;  what  was  the  making  of  one  book, 
will  in  the  next  be  impertinent  or  dull. 
First  each  novel,  and  then  each  class  of 
novels,  exists  by  and  for  itself  I  will  take, 
for  instance,  three  main  classes,  which  are 
fairly  distinct :  first,  the  novel  of  adventure, 
which  appeals  to  certain  almost  sensual  and 
quite  illogical  tendencies  in  man  ;  second, 
the  novel  of  character,  which  appeals  to  our 
intellectual  appreciation  of  man's  foibles  and 
mingled  and  inconstant  motives  ;  and  third, 
the  dramatic  novel,  which  deals  with  the  same 
stuff  as  the  serious  theatre,  and  appeals  to 
our  emotional  nature  and  moral  judgment. 

And  first  for  the  novel  of  adventure.      Mr. 
James    refers,    with    singular    generosity    of 


A  Humble  Remonstrance        287 

praise,  to  a  little  book  about  a  quest  for 
hidden  treasure  ;  but  he  lets  fall,  by  the  way, 
some  rather  startling  words.  In  this  book  he 
misses  what  he  calls  the  "  immense  luxury  " 
of  being  able  to  quarrel  with  his  author. 
The  luxury,  to  most  of  us,  is  to  lay  by  our 
judgment,  to  be  submerged  by  the  tale  as  by 
a  billow,  and  only  to  awake,  and  begin  to 
distinguish  and  find  fault,  when  the  piece  is 
over  and  the  volume  laid  aside.  Still  more 
remarkable  is  Mr.  James's  reason.  He  can- 
not criticise  the  author,  as  he  goes,  "  because," 
says  he,  comparing  it  with  another  work,  "  / 
have  been  a  child,  but  I  have  nez-er  bee?i  on  a 
quest  for  buried  treasured  Here  is,  indeed, 
a  wilful  paradox  ;  for  if  he  has  never  been 
on  a  quest  for  buried  treasure,  it  can  be 
demonstrated  that  he  has  never  been  a  child. 
There  never  was  a  child  (unless  Master 
James)  but  has  hunted  gold,  and  been  a 
pirate,  and  a  military  commander,  and  a 
bandit  of  the  mountains  ;  but  has  fought,  and 
suffered  shipwreck  and  prison,  and  imbrued 
its  little  hands  in  gore,  and  gallantly  retrieved 


2  88         Memories  and  Porh'aits 

the  lost  battle,  and  triumphantly  protected 
innocence  and  beauty.  Elsewhere  in  his  essay 
Mr.  James  has  protested  with  excellent  reason 
against  too  narrow  a  conception  of  experience; 
for  the  born  artist,  he  contends,  the  "  faintest 
hints  of  life  "  are  converted  into  revelations  ; 
and  it  will  be  found  true,  I  believe,  in  a 
majority  of  cases,  that  the  artist  writes  with 
more  gusto  and  effect  of  those  things  which  he 
has  only  wished  to  do,  than  of  those  which 
he  has  done.  Desire  is  a  wonderful  telescope, 
and  Pisgah  the  best  observatory.  Now,  while 
it  is  true  that  neither  Mr.  James  nor  the  author 
of  the  work  in  question  has  ever,  in  the 
fleshly  sense,  gone  questing  after  gold,  it  is 
probable  that  both  have  ardently  desired 
and  fondly  imagined  the  details  of  such  a  life 
in  youthful  day-dreams ;  and  the  author,  count- 
ing upon  that,  and  well  aware  (cunning  and 
low-minded  man  !)  that  this  class  of  interest, 
having  been  frequently  treated,  finds  a  readily 
accessible  and  beaten  road  to  the  sympathies 
of  the  reader,  addressed  himself  throughout 
to  the  building  up  and  circumstantiation  of 


A  Humble  Remonstrance        289 

this  boyish  dream.  Character  to  the  boy  is 
a  sealed  book  ;  for  him,  a  pirate  is  a  beard,  a 
pair  of  wide  trousers  and  a  liberal  complement 
of  pistols.  The  author,  for  the  sake  of  circum- 
stantiation  and  because  he  was  himself  more 
or  less  grown  up,  admitted  character,  within 
certain  limits,  into  his  design  ;  but  only 
within  certain  limits.  Had  the  same  puppets 
figured  in  a  scheme  of  another  sort,  they  had 
been  drawn  to  very  different  purpose  ;  for  in 
this  elementary  novel  of  adventure,  the 
characters  need  to  be  presented  with  but  one 
class  of  qualities — the  warlike  and  formidable. 
So  as  they  appear  insidious  in  deceit  and 
fatal  in  the  combat,  they  have  served  their 
end.  Danger  is  the  matter  with  which  this 
class  of  novel  deals  ;  fear,  the  passion  with 
which  it  idly  trifles  ;  and  the  characters  arc 
portrayed  only  so  far  as  they  realise  the 
sense  of  danger  and  provoke  the  sympathy 
of  fear.  To  add  more  traits,  to  be  too  clever, 
to  start  the  hare  of  moral  or  intellectual  in- 
terest   while    we    are    runniiig    the    fox     of 

material    interest,    is   not    to   enrich    but    to 
U 


290         Me7nories  and  Portraits 

stultify  your  tale.  The  stupid  reader  will 
only  be  offended,  and  the  clever  reader  lose 
the  scent. 

The  novel  of  character  has  this  difference 
from  all  others  :  that  it  requires  no  coherency 
of  plot,  and  for  this  reason,  as  in  the  case  of 
Gil  Bias,  it  is  sometimes  called  the  novel  of 
adventure.  It  turns  on  the  humours  of  the 
persons  represented  ;  these  are,  to  be  sure, 
embodied  in  incidents,  but  the  incidents 
themselves,  being  tributary,  need  not  march 
in  a  progression  ;  and  the  characters  may  be 
statically  shown.  As  they  enter,  so  they 
may  go  out  ;  they  must  be  consistent,  but 
they  need  not  grow.  Here  Mr.  James  will 
recognise  the  note  of  much  of  his  own  work  : 
he  treats,  for  the  most  part,  the  statics  of 
character,  studying  it  at  rest  or  only  gently 
moved  ;  and,  with  his  usual  delicate  and  just 
artistic  instinct,  he  avoids  those  stronger 
passions  which  would  deform  the  attitudes 
he  loves  to  study,  and  change  his  sitters  from 
the  humorists  of  ordinary  life  to  the  brute 
forces    and    bare    types   of   more   emotional 


A  Hiunble  Re?nonslrance        291 

moments.  In  his  recent  Author  of  Beltraffioy 
so  juijt  in  conception,  so  nimble  and  neat  in 
workmanship,  strong  passion  is  indeed  em- 
ployed ;  but  observe  that  it  is  not  displayed. 
Even  in  the  heroine  the  working  of  the 
passion  is  suppressed  ;  and  the  great  struggle, 
the  true  tragedy,  the  scene-a-faire,  passes  un- 
seen behind  the  panels  of  a  locked  door.  The 
delectable  invention  of  the  young  visitof  is 
introduced,  consciously  or  not,  to  this  end  : 
that  Mr.  James,  true  to  his  method,  might 
avoid  the  scene  of  passion.  I  trust  no  reader 
will  suppose  me  guilty  of  undervaluing  this 
little  masterpiece.  I  mean  merely  that  it 
belongs  to  one  marked  class  of  novel,  and 
that  it  would  have  been  very  differently  con- 
ceived and  treated  had  it  belonged  to  that 
other  marked  class,  of  which  I  now  proceed 
to  speak. 

I  take  pleasure  in  calling  the  dramatic 
novel  by  that  name,  because  it  enables  me 
to  point  out  by  the  way  a  strange  and 
peculiarly  English  misconception.  It  is 
sometimes  supposed  that  the  drama  consists 


292         Memoidcs  and  Portraits 

of  incident.  It  consists  of  passion,  which 
gives  the  actor  his  opportunity ;  and  that 
passion  must  progressively  increase,  or  the 
actor,  as  the  piece  proceeded,  would  be  un- 
able to  carry  the  audience  from  a  lower  to  a 
higher  pitch  of  interest  and  emotion.  A 
good  serious  play  must  therefore  be  founded 
on  one  of  the  passionate  criices  of  life,  where 
duty  and  inclination  come  nobly  to  the 
grapple ;  and  the  same  is  true  of  what  I  call, 
for  that  reason,  the  dramatic  novel.  I  will 
instance  a  few  worthy  specimens,  all  of  our 
own  day  and  language  ;  Meredith's  Rhoda 
Flemings  that  wonderful  and  painful  book, 
long  out  of  print,^  and  hunted  for  at  book- 
stalls like  an  Aldine  ;  Hardy's  Pair  of  Blue 
Eyes;  and  two  of  Charles  Reade's,  Griffith 
Gaunt  and  The  Double  Marriage,  originally 
called  White  Lies,  and  founded  (by  an 
accident  quaintly  favourable  to  my  nomen- 
clature) on  a  play  by  Maquet,  the  partner  of 
the  great  Dumas.  In  this  kind  of  novel  the 
closed  door  of  The  Author  of  Beltraffio  must 

^  Now  no  longer  so,  thank  Heaven  t 


A  Httmble  Remonstrance        293 

be  broken  open  ;  passion  must  appear  upon 
the  scene  and  utter  its  last  word  ;  passion  is 
the  be-all  and  the  end-all,  the  plot  and  the 
solution,  the  protagonist  and  the  dens  ex 
machiuA  in  one.  The  characters  may  come 
anyhow  upon  the  stage  :  we  do  not  care  ; 
the  point  is,  that,  before  they  leave  it,  they 
shall  become  transfigured  and  raised  out  of 
themselves  by  passion.  It  may  be  part  of 
the  design  to  draw  them  with  detail  ;  to 
depict  a  full-length  character,  and  then 
behold  it  melt  and  change  in  the  furnace  ol 
emotion.  But  there  is  no  obligation  of  the 
sort ;  nice  portraiture  is  not  required  ;  and 
we  are  content  to  accept  mere  abstract  types, 
so  they  be  strongly  and  sincerely  moved.  A 
novel  of  this  class  may  be  even  great,  and 
yet  contain  no  individual  figure  ;  it  may  be 
gi'^at,  because  it  displays  the  workings  of  the 
perturbed  heart  and  the  impersonal  utterance 
of  passion  ;  and  with  an  artist  of  the  second 
class  it  is,  indeed,  even  more  likely  to  be 
great,  when  the  issue  has  thus  been  narrowed 
and    the   whole   force   of  the   writer's   mind 


294         Memories  and  Portraits 

directed  to  passion  alone.  Cleverness  again, 
which  has  its  fair  field  in  the  novel  of  charac- 
ter, is  debarred  all  entry  upon  this  mora 
solemn  theatre.  A  far-fetched  motive,  an 
ingenious  evasion  of  the  issue,  a  witty  instead 
of  a  passionate  turn,  offend  us  like  an  in- 
sincerity. All  should  be  plain,  all  straight- 
forward to  the  end.  Hence  it  is  that,  in 
Rhoda  Fleming,  Mrs.  Lovel  raises  such  resent- 
ment in  the  reader ;  her  motives  are  too 
flimsy,  her  ways  are  too  equivocal,  for  the 
weight  and  strength  of  her  surroundings. 
Hence  the  hot  indignation  of  the  reader  when 
Balzac,  after  having  begun  the  Duchesse  de 
Langeais  in  terms  of  strong  if  somewhat 
swollen  passion,  cuts  the  knot  by  the  derange- 
ment of  the  hero's  clock.  Such  personages 
and  incidents  belong  to  the  novel  of  charac- 
ter ;  they  are  out  of  place  in  the  high 
society  of  the  passions  ;  when  the  passions 
are  introduced  in  art  at  their  full  height,  we 
look  to  see  them,  not  baffled  and  impotently 
striving,  as  in  life,  but  towering  above  circum 
stance  and  acting  substitutes  for  fate. 


A  Humble  Remonstrance        295 

And  here  I  can  imagine  Mr.  James,  with 
his  lucid  sense,  to  intervene.  To  much  of 
what  I  have  said  he  would  apparently  demur; 
in  much  he  would,  somewhat  impatiently, 
acquiesce.  It  may  be  true ;  but  it  is  not 
what  he  desired  to  say  or  to  hear  said.  He 
spoke  of  the  finished  picture  and  its  worth 
when  done  ;  I,  of  the  brushes,  the  palette, 
and  the  north  light.  He  uttered  his  views 
in  the  tone  and  for  the  ear  of  good  society; 
I,  with  the  emphasis  and  technicalities  of  the 
obtrusive  student.  But  the  point,  I  may 
reply,  is  not  merely  to  amuse  the  public, 
but  to  offer  helpful  advice  to  the  young 
writer.  And  the  young  writer  will  not  so 
much  be  helped  by  genial  pictures  of  what 
an  art  may  aspire  to  at  its  highest,  as  by  a 
true  idea  of  what  it  must  be  on  the  lowest 
terms.  The  best  that  we  can  say  to  him  is 
this  :  Let  him  choose  a  motive,  whether  of 
character  or  passion  ;  carefully  construct  his 
plot  so  that  every  incident  is  an  illustration 
of  the  motive,  and  every  property  employed 
shall  bear  to  it  a  near  relation  of  congruity 


2g6         Memories  and  Portraits 

or  contrast;  avoid  a  sub-plot,  unless,  as  some- 
times in  Shakespeare,  the  sub-plot  be  a  rever- 
sion or  complement  of  the  main  intrigue ; 
suffer  not  his  style  to  flag  below  the  level  of 
the  argument;  pitch  the  key  of  conversation, 
not  with  any  thought  of  how  men  talk  in 
parlours,  but  with  a  single  eye  to  the  degree 
of  passion  he  may  be  called  on  to  express  ; 
and  allow  neither  himself  in  the  narrative  nor 
any  character  in  the  course  of  the  dialogue, 
to  utter  one  sentence  that  is  not  part  and 
parcel  of  the  business  of  the  story  or  the 
discussion  of  the  problem  involved.  Let 
him  not  regret  if  this  shortens  his  book  ;  it 
will  be  better  so ;  for  to  add  irrelevant 
matter  is  not  to  lengthen  but  to  bury.  Let 
him  not  mind  if  he  miss  a  thousand  qualities, 
so  that  he  keeps  unflaggingly  in  pursuit  of 
the  one  he  has  chosen.  Let  him  not  care 
particularly  if  he  miss  the  tone  of  conversa- 
tion, the  pungent  material  detail  of  the  day's 
manners,  the  reproduction  of  the  atmosphere 
and  the  environment.  These  elements  are 
not  essential  :  a  novel  may  be  excellent,  and 


A  Humble  Remonstrance        297 

yet  have  none  of  them  ;  a  passion  or  a 
character  is  so  much  the  better  depicted  as 
it  rises  clearer  from  material  circumstance. 
In  this  age  of  the  particular,  let  him  remem- 
ber the  ages  of  the  abstract,  the  great  books 
of  the  past,  the  brave  men  that  lived  before 
Shakespeare  and  before  Balzac.  And  as 
the  root  of  the  whole  matter,  let  him  bear  in 
mind  that  his  novel  is  not  a  transcript  of 
life,  to  be  judged  by  its  exactitude  ;  but  a 
simplification  of  some  side  or  point  of  life,  to 
stand  or  fall  by  its  significant  simplicity. 
For  although,  in  great  men,  working  upon 
great  motives,  what  we  observe  and  admire 
is  often  their  complexity,  yet  underneath 
appearances  the  truth  remains  unchanged  ; 
that  simplification  was  their  method,  and 
that  simplicity  is  their  excellence. 

II 

Since  the  above  was  written  another 
novelist  has  entered  repeatedly  the  lists  of 
theory:    one   well    worthy  of   mention,  Mr 


298         Memories  and  Portraits 

W.  D.  Howells;  and  none  ever  couched  a  lance 
with  narrower  convictions.  His  own  work 
and  those  of  his  pupils  and  masters  singly 
occupy  his  mind  ;  he  is  the  bondslave,  the 
zealot  of  his  school ;  he  dreams  of  an  advance 
in  art  like  what  there  is  in  science;  he  thinks 
of  past  things  as  radically  dead ;  he  thinks  a 
form  can  be  outlived  :  a  strange  immersion  in 
his  own  history;  a  strange  forgetfulness  of  the 
history  of  the  race  !  Meanwhile,  by  a  glance 
at  his  own  works  (could  he  see  them  with 
the  eager  eyes  of  his  readers)  much  of  this 
illusion  would  be  dispelled.  For  while  he 
holds  all  the  poor  little  orthodoxies  of  the 
day — no  poorer  and  no  smaller  than  those 
of  yesterday  or  to-morrow,  poor  and  small, 
indeed,  only  so  far  as  they  are  exclusive — the 
living  quality  of  much  that  he  has  done  is  of 
a  contrary,  I  had  almost  said  of  a  heretical, 
complexion.  A  man,  as  I  read  him,  of  an 
originally  strong  romantic  bent — a  certain 
glow  of  romance  still  resides  in  many  of  his 
books,  and  lends  them  their  distinction.  As 
by  accident   he  runs   out  and   revels   in   the 


A  Humble  Remonstrance        299 

exceptional;  and  it  is  then,  as  often  as  not, 
that  his  reader  rejoices — ^justly,  as  I  contend 
For  in  all  this  excessive  eagerness  to  be 
centrally  human,  is  there  not  one  central 
human  thing  that  Mr.  Howells  is  too  often 
tempted  to  neglect :  I  mean  himself?  A 
poet,  a  finished  artist,  a  man  in  love  with 
the  appearances  of  life,  a  cunning  reader  of 
the  mind,  he  has  other  passions  and  aspira- 
tions than  those  he  loves  to  draw.  And 
why  should  he  suppress  himself  and  do  such 
reverence  to  the  Lemuel  Barkers  ?  The  ob- 
vious is  not  of  necessity  the  normal ;  fashion 
rules  and  deforms;  the  majority  fall  tamely 
into  the  contemporary  shape,  and  thus  attain, 
in  the  eyes  of  the  true  observer,  only  a  higher 
power  of  insignificance ;  and  the  danger  is 
lest,  in  seeking  to  draw  the  normal,  a  man 
should  draw  the  null,  and  write  the  novel  of 
society  instead  of  the  romance  of  man. 


^  J^ 


■^ 


\M 


m.w  ■£.. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

;  ^  Santa  Barbara  College  Library 

Goleta,  California 

/V,  Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


id'if^ 


<;=iaSP' 


